Why it's a good idea to stock up on masks, tests
By Syra Madad / Special To The Washington Post
Congress’s inability to provide continued funding for the country’s pandemic response gives me deja vu. In December 2019, I and other experts warned that a program protecting us from a deadly pandemic was about to expire.
Three days later, news broke about a cluster of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause, which would turn out to be the novel coronavirus. Despite the warnings, it wasn’t until the following March that Congress appropriated funds to respond to the coronavirus. By then, some states — Washington among them — had implemented stay-at-home orders to prevent further spread of the coronavirus.
You’d think that two years after that misstep, our leaders would understand how costly it is in lives and dollars to dither when a threat seems far off, only to scramble into action when it arrives at your doorstep. But the unfortunate cycle of panic and neglect that has marked our response to previous pathogens remains unchanged. As we saw with anthrax in 2001, H1N1 in 2009, Ebola in 2014, Zika in 2016, as the threat abates, so does the funding.
The latest example of this pattern comes as administration officials are warning that they desperately need funding to buy tests, treatments, vaccines and other supplies to combat the coronavirus. Without fresh funding, White House officials have said, the country won’t have enough vaccine supplies to provide a second booster shot for those who need them, and shipments of monoclonal antibody treatments to states will have to be slashed. Some coronavirus surveillance efforts also will be shelved, leaving the United States potentially blind yet again from incoming variant threats.
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