American case numbers ARE increasing as the ‘All Clear’ has been announced…..
Congress needs to contiue funding Covid vaccines, antiviral treatments and other supplies for Americans….
The next wave of Covid-19 is coming, and in some parts of the United States, it’s already here. Are you ready?
The culprit this time is BA.2, a subvariant of the highly infectious Omicron variant. Nobody knows for sure how much havoc it will cause, but BA.2 has already led to a surge of cases in Europe and is now the dominant version of the coronavirus in the United Statesand around the world.
Researchers are tracking an uptick in cases in the United States, and they’ve detected a rise in the viral particles recovered from nearly 150 wastewater-surveillance sites. Because people can shed the coronavirus even if they never develop symptoms, pieces of the virus collected in wastewater can serve as advance warning several days before official case counts rise, said Bronwyn MacInnis, who directs pathogen genomic surveillance at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Mass. Over the past two weeks, Dr. MacInnis’s group has seen a rapid increase in levels of the BA.2 subvariant in the Northeast.
“I don’t think we’re looking at a crazy lockdown scenario in this part of the world with BA.2,” Dr. MacInnis said. “But we can’t be sure that we won’t have another curveball from this virus in the future.”…
As Congress struggles to provide more federal funding to combat Covid-19, Americans are starting to feel the consequences.
The federal program that reimburses pharmacies, clinics, doctors, hospitals and other providers for testing and treating the uninsured for Covid-19 stopped accepting new claims last week due to insufficient funds. And it will cease taking new claims for vaccinating the uninsured on April 5.
The end of this program – which launched in the early days of the pandemic – makes it tougher for the nation’s 31 million uninsured residents to contend with Covid-19. While some access to free services continues, many uninsured Americans will now have to shell out money to get a coronavirus test or receive treatment if they are sick.
Vaccinations should still be provided free of charge since the federal government pre-purchased all the vaccines, said Jennifer Tolbert, associate director for the Program on Medicaid and the Uninsured at the Kaiser Family Foundation. Providers have been able to apply for reimbursement for administering the shot.
The federal program’s cessation is expected to hit more than just the uninsured, especially if the US experiences another Covid-19 surge….
If passed in its current form, the $10 billion deal would represent a significant disappointment for the White House, which had publicly campaigned for at least $22 billion in new funds and would probably be forced to scale back elements of its planned response. But lawmakers are facing a rapidly approaching deadline, with Congress soon taking a two-week break, and administration officials warning that they are effectively out of cash for urgent coronavirus needs. The federal government has already begun to wind down a program to cover the costs of health-care providers that give coronavirus tests, treatments and vaccinations to uninsured Americans, an initiative that officials said has cost about $2 billion per month….