March 30, 2022, 3:29 p.m. • 4 minutes reading Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Email this article President Joe Biden will receive his second commemorative vaccine following his scheduled statements Wednesday on the state of the country’s response to COVID, according to the White House. Biden is expected to push for the launch of COVID.gov, a new website the White House calls a “one stop” to help Americans get better access to vaccines, tests, treatments and masks – as well as updates. for a specific area related to the spread of COVID-19. The site directs users to sites where they can receive vaccines, boosters and masks, and connects people to another White House site to order free quick home trials. The president will also point out that the “Test to Treat” initiative he announced in the State of the Union has already been extended to more than 2,000 websites nationwide and now through COVID.gov’s new “Test to Treat Locator”, Americans can easily find pharmacies and community health centers to be tested for COVID-19 and receive treatment if needed. In particular, many of the COVID efforts available at COVID.gov are the same things the White House says are in danger of running out in the coming weeks and months unless more funding is approved. Officials have been sounding the alarm for weeks about the critical need for more funding for COVID, warning of the serious consequences for Americans. President Joe Biden speaks at the East White House, March 29, 2022, in Washington. Biden on Wednesday will send what a White House official called an “urgent, immediate message to Congress” to act quickly to secure funding to address the government’s COVID-19. Last week, the fund to cover trials and treatments for uninsured Americans ran out of money, letting people pay up to $ 125 out of pocket if they did PCR tests at labs like Quest Diagnostics, one of the largest in the world. country. Funding to cover the cost of vaccinating the uninsured will be exhausted next week. At the same time, supplies of monoclonal antibody therapy distributed in the states each week fell by 35%. And the US supply could be completely depleted by May, if funding is not secured. The government says it has enough trials to reach the summer, but if there is another outbreak, the country will be caught flat again as it was during the Omicron wave. “You could see, again, a gap in access to home trials,” Andrea Palm, deputy secretary of health and human services, told reporters last week. The White House said without further funding, “the results are tragic” – an official told ABC News earlier this month, “Simply put, failure to act now will have serious consequences for the American people.” The White House has called for $ 22.5 billion in immediate assistance to keep COVID-19 programs alive. Congress reduced that request to $ 15 billion before cutting it completely from its spending account in early March. Since then, the White House has urged Democrats and Republicans on the Hill to reach an agreement, but negotiations remain deadlocked. ABC News’ Justin Gomez contributed to this report.
