President Joe Biden on Thursday urged Congress to deliver the funds needed for the next phase of the pandemic, including for testing, vaccines and therapies, in a statement made ahead of the second COVID-19 summit. “. We must remain vigilant against this pandemic and do everything we can to save as many lives as possible, as we have with more testing, vaccines, and treatments than ever before. It’s critical that Congress sustain these resources in the coming months,” he said. Biden also mourned the one million American lives lost to COVID, as tallies near that milestone.
COVID cases are rising across the U.S. again driven by the BA.2 variant of omicron, and two other subvariants that appear to be even more infectious. The two, named BA.2.12 and BA.2.12.1, were highlighted by health officials in New York State recently. The U.S. is averaging 84,329 cases a day, up 58% from two weeks ago, according to a New York Times tracker. The country is averaging 19,694 hospitalizations a day, up 20% from two weeks ago. The daily death toll has fallen below 400 to 327 on average.
On a global basis, total cases are now above 519.5 million. Total deaths are above 6.25 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University, with the U.S. still leading the way with 82.2 million cases and 998,997 deaths.
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