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Here We Go Again? Biden to Ask for More Cash for Vaccines Amid Mutant Variant Spike

© AFP 2023 / MANDEL NGANUS President Joe Biden speaks on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, on July 19, 2023.
US President Joe Biden speaks on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, on July 19, 2023. - Sputnik International, 1920, 26.08.2023
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President Joe Biden asked Congress to greenlight more billions as part of his spending spree earlier in the month. The Democratic POTUS’ request amounts to $40 billion in additional spending, with more than half of that earmarked for the Kiev regime. The supplemental funding request at the time did not include COVID-19 vaccinations.
President Joe Biden intends to seek more additional funding from Congress, just weeks after he told lawmakers that roughly $40 billion were needed to prop up Ukraine, replenish America’s federal disaster funds, and boost law enforcement at the crisis-riddled US-Mexico border.
This time, however, Biden will ask for funds that will cover the development of another new COVID-19 vaccine.

"I signed off this morning on a proposal we have to present to the Congress a request for additional funding for a new vaccine that is necessary, that works... It will likely be recommended that everybody get it no matter whether they’ve gotten it before or not," Biden said on Friday.

The last time Joe Biden, currently vacationing in the Lake Tahoe area, asked Congress for money to address COVID-19 was in November 2022. At the time, he unsuccessfully attempted to get lawmakers to greenlight a $9 billion request.
Ever since Republicans took control of the US House of Representatives in January, many of them have demanded spending cuts, and pledged to oppose blank checks for Kiev. Accordingly, the White House is going to have a tough uphill fight getting supplementary spending through Congress in fall.
Ukrainian servicemen load a truck with the FGM-148 Javelin, American man-portable anti-tank missile provided by US to Ukraine as part of a military support, upon its delivery at Kiev's airport Borispol on February 11, 2022 - Sputnik International, 1920, 11.08.2023
Analysis
Biden's Effort to Get Extra $24 Billion for Ukraine Will Sway 'Only Hardcore Politicos'
The new demand for funds will come as COVID-19 hospital admissions appear to be on the rise in the US. Hospitalizations stood at 9,056 people for the week ending July 29, which is a surge of around 12 percent from the previous week. Some regions have event gone as far as to reignite the debate around bringing back mask mandates.
Amid the uptick, new vaccines containing the XBB.1.5 version of the Omicron strain are currently in the pipeline, being developed by drugmakers like Pfizer, Novavax, and Moderna. However, according to health authorities in the US, this particular variant is declining, with Omicron subvariant known as EG.5 - dubbed "Eris" - becoming the dominant one. The subvariant has been designated a variant under monitoring by the World Health Organization (WHO), but not yet marked as a variant of interest or of concern. Data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on August 5 showed that EG.5 was responsible for between 14-21 percent of new COVID-19 cases in the US. Accordingly, the Omicron virus' continuing mutation will likely necessitate updated vaccines, looking ahead. But the new shots will still be effective, health experts have been cited as saying, as EG.5 shares enough common characteristics with the XBB-series of subvariants.
All three abovementioned pharmaceutical companies have been working on vaccine boosters targeting the XBB-series of Omicron subvariants in line with a June directive by the US Food and Drug Administration, and are still waiting for official FDA approval of their vaccines.
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) sign outside its Atlanta, Georgia, headquarters - Sputnik International, 1920, 18.08.2023
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New COVID-19 Variant Detected in US, Denmark, Israel - US CDC
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