- Title: 'You can't fight a deadly virus without resources' - WH takes jab at Congress
- Date: 11th October 2022
- Summary: WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES (OCTOBER 11, 2022) (REUTERS) WHITE HOUSE COVID COORDINATOR ASHISH JHA APPROACHING LECTERN (SOUNDBITE) (English) WHITE HOUSE COVID COORDINATOR, ASHISH JHA, SAYING: "We are carefully monitoring the rise of several sub variants that are evolving rapidly and emerging around the world, including ones that evade some of our treatments." WHITE FLASH (SOUNDBITE) (English) WHITE HOUSE COVID COORDINATOR, ASHISH JHA, SAYING: "It's really critical that everyone 12 and older should go get this updated annual COVID-19 vaccine. So you're protected this fall and winter and you're protected year round." WHITE FLASH (SOUNDBITE) (English) WHITE HOUSE COVID COORDINATOR, ASHISH JHA, SAYING: "Well, so no doubt about it that our response has been hampered by that lack of funding. And even from this podium I just explained that we thought was incredibly important to get the new vaccines, we did. We pulled money from having, we had money allocated for a stockpile of tests and personal protective equipment, remember? Having enough PPE for doctors and nurses, pretty critical. We were going to have a national stockpile. We do not have an adequate stockpile of that or of tests because we had to pull resources to make sure that we had enough vaccines." WHITE FLASH (SOUNDBITE) (English) WHITE HOUSE COVID COORDINATOR, ASHISH JHA, SAYING: "I think for most Americans is a once a year shot. And by the way, people think somehow that's we're making news. We're really not. If you think about it, taking the average 40 year old, if they got a booster last fall, they first became eligible for a new vaccine just a month ago. So essentially, for a majority of Americans, we've already gotten into a once a year rhythm. All we did by calling it an annual COVID-19 vaccine is call it what it had already become." WHITE FLASH (SOUNDBITE) (English) WHITE HOUSE COVID COORDINATOR, ASHISH JHA, SAYING: "So predictions are always hard on these things because the virus continues to surprise us and continues to evolve. There are three or four sub variants that we are tracking most closely. They are, you know, in different parts of the world and they all arise either from BA.2 or BA.5 kind of lineage. And the reason we're tracking them is because they either have a lot more immune evasiveness or they render many of our treatments ineffective. Those are the two major things that get our attention." WHITE HOUSE (SOUNDBITE) (English) WHITE HOUSE COVID COORDINATOR, ASHISH JHA, SAYING: "Obviously, we're going to do the studies to figure out how much protection. I remain confident that our vaccines will continue to work very well, certainly against protecting against serious illness." WHITE HOUSE (SOUNDBITE) (English) WHITE HOUSE COVID COORDINATOR, ASHISH JHA, SAYING: "But all of this is made just dramatically harder by congressional inaction. You can't fight a deadly virus without resources, and congressional inaction is really costly." JHA LEAVING LECTERN
- Embargoed: 25th October 2022 21:42
- Keywords: COVID Congress vaccine variants
- Location: WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES
- City: WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES
- Country: US
- Topics: Health/Medicine,United States
- Reuters ID: LVA001158511102022RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: EDIT CONTAINS WHITE FLASHES
White House Covid Coordinator Ashish Jha criticised Congress on Tuesday (October 11) for the lack of funding that "hampered" the government response to COVID-19.
"All of this is made just dramatically harder by congressional inaction. You can't fight a deadly virus without resources, and congressional inaction is really costly," said Jha during a White House press briefing.
Jha said that resources destined to buy PPE for doctors and nurses had to be pulled to fund vaccines, keeping the government from developing an adequate equipment stockpile.
The White House expects the rate of vaccination in its fall booster campaign to pick up over the coming weeks.
The United States in September started rolling out the updated COVID shots, redesigned to take on both the currently circulating BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron subvariants as well as the original version of the virus targeted by all previous COVID vaccines and boosters. The so-called bivalent boosters are available to anyone aged 12 and older.
Around 11.5 million people received the updated shots over the first five weeks of the rollout, including around 3.9 million who received them over the past week, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data released on Thursday.
That represents only 5.3% of the 216 million people aged 12 or older who may be eligible to receive the shots after completing their primary vaccination series.
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