Several Senate Republican leaders recently expressed “growing concern” over the nation’s stalled progress in fighting the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and requested details on how the Biden administration plans to move forward during the coming months.
U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) joined U.S. Sens. Richard Burr (R-NC), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee; Mike Crapo (R-ID), ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee; and Roy Blunt (R-MO), ranking member on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, to call on White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeffrey Zients to explain why the Biden administration has “created confusion and exacerbated vaccine hesitancy.”
“Over the last few months, our progress towards combating COVID-19 has been interrupted — cases of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant are surging across the country, mounting pressure on health care systems and forcing hospitals to turn away patients,” the senators wrote in a Sept. 22 letter sent to Zients. “We have lost too many lives to the resurgence of the pandemic, especially when we have safe and effective vaccines to combat this virus.”
When President Biden announced on July 4 that the nation had “gained the upper hand” over COVID-19, that progress was the result of the success of Operation Warp Speed (OWS), nearly $50 billion in funding from Congress, and the partnership of OWS with the private sector, according to the senators’ letter.
However, as the Delta variant continues to spread across the country, along with reported cases of the newly detected Mu variant, “there is still no clear strategy to bring this pandemic to an end,” they wrote.
The senators requested that Zients answer several questions by Sept. 30, including what process is in place to coordinate across federal agencies to follow standards and processes that determine vaccine, therapeutic and testing announcements.
Additionally, the lawmakers asked Zients to explain why the White House announced the availability of vaccine boosters prior to any scientific or regulatory work being done to approve or authorize such boosters.
They also want to know what steps are being put in place “to avoid politics overpowering the science” regarding the public response to the ongoing pandemic.
And the senators requested information on a coherent strategy for global vaccine distribution, among several other questions, according to their letter.
“While we are familiar with the administration’s newly announced six-point plan to refocus the federal response on the COVID-19 pandemic, we believe the American people deserve greater and more detailed information on how this administration is going to utilize the greatest weapon made available thanks to OWS,” they wrote.