The White House has released a document that details its new coronavirus strategy as the Omicron wave appears to have passed. The Biden administration takes note of the loosening of health restrictions but wants to remain vigilant provided that funding is found.
With our correspondent in Washington, Guillaume Naudin
Test to treat. It was one of Joe Biden’s main announcements during the State of the Union address on Tuesday evening March 1. That is to say that a positive test in a pharmacy will induce the immediate provision of anti-Covid treatment, in other words the Pfizer pill, to avoid developing serious forms of the disease and hospitalizations.
The Biden administration now believes there are enough vaccines, treatments and tests to keep Americans safe from a disease that has claimed nearly a million lives nationwide.
There are three other axes in this detailed plan in a document of a hundred pages. Increase surveillance measures and detection of possible new variants. Ensure there are no more lockdowns or school closures and finally to extend vaccination in the world.
An additional thirty-two billion dollars
For this, the White House needs new funding. It therefore announced on Thursday that it had asked Congress for more than 32 billion dollars (nearly 30 billion euros) to finance its new anti-Covid strategy and provide humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine. The American executive wants this funding to be included in its annual budget, which elected officials must validate before the current one expires on Friday March 11.
Except that for that, she needs the support of a dozen Republican senators. Thirty-six of them would still like to know why additional funding is necessary when 6,000 billion dollars (5,450 billion euros) of various aids have already been voted since the start of the pandemic. This bodes well for close discussions.