Covid-19 cases are on the rise again in the United States, but this time there is little impetus for new restrictions or funding to combat them.
The number of daily new cases in the United States has increased by 14 percent since the beginning of April, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, reaching about 32,000 cases a day. The rise is fueled by BA. 2 option that has caused leaps in Europe in the last few weeks.
Unlike other waves, however, the US political response has so far been silenced, with Congress still debating more than $ 10 billion in additional pandemic spending and largely mandated mask mandates.
Dr Ezekiel Emanuel, a professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and a former Covid adviser to US President Joe Biden, said: “We want this thing to end, but it’s not over. If we don’t do things like reintroduce mask mandates, that would be a big mistake. “
Public health experts have been warning for weeks about the possibility of a new wave of infections in the United States after seeing that the United Kingdom and the EU have recently suffered their second biggest jump in confirmed cases since the pandemic began.
However, these warnings did not provoke a serious political reaction. Philadelphia officials have reintroduced the mask mandate, while the federal government has extended its public transport mask mandate by another two weeks. But most states and cities have so far opposed re-imposing the types of public health restrictions seen earlier in the pandemic.
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The number of cases has started to increase, but so far in a much more diverse way than in Europe. New levels of cases are approaching pre-Omicron peaks in many northeastern states, such as Vermont and Massachusetts, as well as cities, including Washington, D.C. Several senior politicians, including Merrick Garland, the attorney general, recently contracted the disease after attending Gridiron’s annual dinner in Washington.
But elsewhere, infections seem to have remained low. In Texas, for example, the average percentage of daily new cases has changed little since early March.
Some experts believe that the real degree of the jump is obscured by the huge drop in the number of tests performed. At the peak of the Omicron wave in January, more than 2 million tests were performed every day in the United States. Now the figure is about 540,000.
However, others believe in the American BA. Wave 2 is proving less powerful than the one that hit Europe, partly because many Americans have been infected with Omicron and partly because better weather allows for more outdoor communication.
Liana Wen, a professor of public health at George Washington University, said: “I don’t think it’s a huge leap. BA. 2 currently accounts for about 82% of infections and by the time it was so dominant in Europe, it had already caused a dramatic jump. I don’t think we’ll see that here. “
While public health experts are worried about what could happen in the next few weeks, members of Congress went on vacation without agreeing to approve more spending on Covid-19.
As a result, doctors can no longer claim the cost of testing and treating uninsured people back from the federal government until the Biden administration is unable to purchase the treatment it wants.
Labcorp and Quest, two of the country’s largest test makers, told the Financial Times they had started charging uninsured people, of whom there are 30 million in the United States. Quest charges between $ 100 and $ 125 for a PCR test, while the cost of two rapid antigen tests costs $ 70.
Doctors believe that this will probably prevent millions of people from being tested and treated for Covid-19 and thus worsen the effects of AD. 2 wave.
Dr Sterling Ranson, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, said: “Many people know that funding is running out and some are not looking for the care they need because of concerns about costs.
“We are very concerned that people are not coming to be tested and that patients are spreading the disease more.
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Drug companies have also begun to warn that they may not be able to continue delivering vaccines and treatments without new funding. Albert Burla, CEO of Pfizer, said he was “very concerned” about the delay in funding, which risks creating a “big problem” because the virus and pandemic have not disappeared.
David Ricks, Eli Lilly’s chief executive, warned: “These drugs are running out now.”
The increase in cases is likely to prove the first major test for Dr. Ashish Ja, Biden’s new chief adviser on Covid-19. So far, Ja has been trying to reassure Americans about the risks of another wave, rather than trying to persuade people to change their behavior to slow the spread.
“I think we need to be careful,” he said this week. “But I don’t think this is a time when we should be overly concerned.”
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