As COVID-19 infections continue to rise in the United States, driven primarily by the Delta variant, the Biden administration is seeking $65 billion to help the nation prepare for the next biological threat before it happens.
Over the weekend, the Biden administration announced plans for a new initiative that will be apart of President Joe Biden's expanding Building Back Better plan to boost the nation's infrastructure. The plan--released in a 27 page document titled "American Pandemic Preparedness: Transforming Our Capabilities"--calls for the federal government to invest billions of dollars over the next decade to improve public health infrastructure by ways of funding vaccine and therapeutics research, enhancing the nation's viral monitoring capabilities and upgrading personal protective equipment to be used against a broad range of pathogens.
The plan comes as the U.S. is still combating the world's worst COVID-19 outbreak, with more than 40 million confirmed infections and at least 649,741 deaths as of Tuesday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Moreover, the White House has estimated the economic damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic to be about $15 trillion.
"We must seize the opportunity to ready ourselves for the biological threats on the horizon. Investing to avert or mitigate the huge toll of future pandemics and other biological threats is an economic and moral imperative. The cost of pandemic prevention pales in comparison to the enormous cost--in lives and in economic cost--of a pandemic. It's hard to imagine a higher return on national investment," the White House said in a Fact Sheet accompanying the plan.
While COVID-19 has been devastating to the nation, the White House believes that the next pandemic will be "substantially different," leading the Biden administration to invest in preparing the nation to deal with any type of viral threat.
According to the document, the White House plans to invest the most from the proposal towards the development of vaccines, which have been successful during the current pandemic at helping prevent severe disease, hospitalizations and death. The plan calls for $24.2 billion in spending for the development and testing of new vaccines for a range of viruses, as well as improve the nation's vaccine distribution and manufacturing infrastructure.
Beyond vaccines, the plan calls for spending $11.8 billion on therapeutics, which will help scientists and drugmakers develop of antivirals and build large-scale manufacturing capacity for monoclonal antibody treatments.
The White House also plans to secure about $3.1 billion for the next generation of personal protection equipment to help front line health care workers combat the next surge of viral infections from the start.
"Achieving these capabilities will require a systematic effort and shared vision for biological preparedness across our government. Like any ambitious endeavor - whether the Apollo mission or the Human Genome Project that cracked the code of human genetics - transforming our nation's pandemic preparedness will take serious, sustained commitment and ambitious accountability. And like those efforts, it is likely to yield benefits beyond the original mission - in this case advances in human health and providing tools that could overcome health inequities and ensure equitable access to innovative products," the White House added.