Days After Approving Another $3 Billion for Ukraine War, US Says No More Money for Free Covid Tests

Public health advocates on Monday warned that the imminent suspension of the Biden administration’s free at-home Covid-19 test program could lead to the autumn and winter surge in infections that officials have feared for months, and denounced the obstruction of Republicans who have refused to pass continued Covid-19 relief this year—even as they’ve approved hundreds of billions of dollars in military spending.

“Well this is quite exactly the wrong thing to do going into fall/winter,” Dr. Taison Bell, an infectious disease physician at University of Virginia, tweeted as the White House announced on its test-ordering website that a lack of congressional funding has forced the government to end shipments of free tests for the time being.

The federal portal notes that shipments “will be suspended on Friday, September 2 because Congress hasn’t provided additional funding to replenish the nation’s stockpile of tests.”

The White House earlier this year requested $22 billion in coronavirus funding, including $5 billion in global aid to help people across the Global South and prevent new variants from spreading, but Republicans and Democrats were only able to agree on a $10 billion deal excluding global spending. That bill has so far failed to pass.

While Republicans have refused to fund continued Covid spending this year, lawmakers from both parties have agreed to prioritize military spending, including nearly $3 billion in long-term aid for Ukrainian forces that was approved last week, a $40 billion Ukraine package that passed in May, and $782 billion in U.S. military funding that was approved in March—days after the Covid relief was pulled from omnibus legislation.

Experts say a winter surge in infections could result in a million hospitalizations and nearly 200,000 deaths in a worst-case scenario.

Originally published at Commondreams.org.