Coronavirus tally: Biden administration urges Congress to provide COVID funding for boosters and testing – MarketWatch

The Biden administration made a firm push for Congress to provide additional funding to fight COVID-19 on Tuesday after $15.6 billion was dropped from a spending bill, arguing that it needs to make sure there are enough doses on hand to provide fourth jabs for all Americans if such boosters are needed - or to provide variant-specific vaccines if those are needed. Without additional funding, the government does not have the ability to maintain the country's domestic testing capacity beyond June, another official said. Officials also warned that providers soon would no longer be able to submit claims for testing, treating and vaccinating uninsured people, and the government would face a reduced ability to rapidly identify and assess new strains of COVID.The U.S. COVID numbers continue to decline, and the nation is now averaging 32,094 new cases a day, according to a New York Times tracker, down 46% from two weeks ago. The average daily number of hospitalizations stands at 26,436, down 44% from two weeks ago. Deaths are averaging 1,226 a day, down 36% from two weeks ago, but still an undesirably high number. Globally, there have been 461.8 million confirmed cases, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University, and 6.05 million deaths. The U.S. leads the world with 79.6 million cases and 966,470 fatalities.

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Coronavirus tally: Biden administration urges Congress to provide COVID funding for boosters and testing - MarketWatch