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White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Ashish Jha said the United States will run out of the necessary tools to deal with fall and winter surges unless Congress advances another tranche of pandemic aid funding.
The U.S. has recorded upticks in new COVID-19 cases since mid-April as well as climbing hospitalizations linked to the disease, signaling that a summer surge is brewing. The U.S. has enough vaccines and treatments to weather a wave in the summer months, but in addressing it, the country is expected to exhaust its supplies of vaccines, treatment, and tests.
“If you want to ask what keeps me awake at night, it is that we are going to run out of vaccines … we’re going to run out of treatments, and we’re going to run out of diagnostic tests, probably in the late fall into winter if we end up having a significant surge of infections [this summer],” Jha said. “We don’t have the resources to buy those things, and those purchases need to be made now.”
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The U.S. is averaging about 100,000 new cases per day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a roughly 30% increase over the last two weeks and about five times higher than the average case count this time last year. The current wave is being powered by an omicron variant offshoot, which now makes up about 59% of cases in the U.S. Still, case rates now are far from the devastating numbers recorded in January during the peak of the omicron surge.
“There certainly are models out there that suggest that we could have a sizable wave of infections in the fall and winter, especially if we don’t have a vaccination campaign in the fall and winter,” Jha said. “If we run out of treatments, if we don’t have enough diagnostic tests, we could be looking at a more complicated situation.”
Over two-thirds over 5 are now fully vaccinated, but a relatively small portion of the country, less than 47%, have received a booster dose. While demand for boosters remains relatively low, the Biden administration is gearing up for a wave of parents wanting to get their children under 5 vaccinated as soon as possible. The Food and Drug Administration will deliberate on authorizing shots for the youngest later this month, and they could become available as soon as June 21, Jha said.
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The federal government has set aside 10 million pediatric doses of vaccines for states to order starting on Friday. Officials have asked states to prioritize the first shipments to entities serving the highest-risk children in the hardest-to-reach areas. It remains to be seen how many parents choose to vaccinate their children as soon as possible versus parents who take a “wait and see” approach. Generally, children are much less susceptible to severe illness and death due to COVID-19.
