What Happened to That ‘Emergency’ Covid Money?

The White House calls for another $31.4 billion. But it isn’t in the Democrats’ reconciliation deal

By Allysia Finley of The WSJ. Excerpts:

"It’s worth rehashing the administration’s grave warnings in March about impending shortages of vaccines, tests and medications. Unless Congress provided tens of billions of more dollars pronto, the administration warned, it wouldn’t be able to procure booster vaccines, sufficient treatments for immunocompromised individuals and desperately needed antivirals.

The U.S. would also soon run out of lifesaving monoclonal antibodies, and tests could be in short supply because the administration wouldn’t have the funds to support domestic testing capacity. Yet none of the White House’s Chicken Little warnings came to pass. Nor are they likely to this summer.

Only about three million of the 20 million courses of Pfizer’s antiviral Paxlovid that the administration has ordered since last November have been prescribed. The administration was late to place the orders, which resulted in shortages during the winter Omicron wave. But as Pfizer has delivered more doses in recent months, uptake has been low.

One reason is Paxlovid is authorized only for patients who are deemed high-risk—Pfizer’s trial didn’t show a statistically significant benefit in younger patients without health conditions—and more than two-thirds of patients over 65 are prescribed a drug that interacts with the antiviral. Many can’t quit their other medications to take Paxlovid since they could experience withdrawal.

Eli Lilly’s monoclonal antibody, bebtelovimab, provides a treatment alternative. Yet despite White House warnings, there has been no shortage of the drug. In late June, Lilly said the existing U.S. supply was expected to last through August. At the same time, the administration ordered an additional 150,000 treatment courses at a cost of $275 million to be delivered no later than Aug. 5.

Meantime, hundreds of thousands of AstraZeneca’s Evusheld prophylactic treatment for immunocompromised patients are sitting on shelves at hospitals and infusion centers. The drug is intended to protect patients who mount a weak immune response to vaccines. While the administration has ordered 1.7 million courses, only about 400,000 have been administered.

Some providers have also been reluctant to prescribe it because of the administration’s warnings about shortages."

"As for Covid tests, the administration in May allowed U.S. households to order a third round of free at-home kits because the government’s supply exceeded demand. Even so, officials still warned that Congress’s “failure to provide additional funding for the nation’s COVID-19 response” would crimp domestic test manufacturing."

"Now the administration is asking Congress for tens of billions of dollars for Covid. Republicans have refused to pass more Covid spending until the administration details how it has spent the money in Democrats’ $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act of March 2021, only $16 billion of which was specifically allocated for vaccines and therapies."