White House Says It Will Scale Back Some Covid Response Plans

The White House, stepping up its push to persuade Congress to appropriate billions of dollars in new coronavirus relief funding, said Tuesday that it is already scaling back plans to purchase monoclonal antibody medicines to prevent and treat Covid-19, and will stop reimbursing medical providers who provide Covid care for the uninsured in early April unless the money is approved.

Senior administration officials, speaking on a conference call with reporters, reiterated their demand that lawmakers approve $22.5 billion in funding. That amount was slashed by Congress to $15.6 billion, but even that is now hanging in the balance, because lawmakers stripped Covid relief funding out of a massive spending bill they passed last week after Republicans refused to support new spending for it.

The administration’s push comes as a Senate panel prepares to vote on whether to create an independent commission to investigate the causes of the pandemic and the federal response. Language to create the commission is part of broad pandemic preparedness legislation that is working its way through Senate Health Committee, which was drafting the final language of the bill on Tuesday.

With coronavirus cases rising in parts of Europe and some Asian countries experiencing severe outbreaks — and with public health experts warning of the possibility of another variant or a summer or fall surge in the United States — the Biden administration is increasingly worried that without more money, it will be caught unprepared.

President Biden’s new coronavirus response plan, outlined earlier this month, included plans to secure more antiviral pills; to build up testing capacity and to accelerate the next generation of vaccines, with the hope that one might be developed to protect against multiple variants. But without funding from Congress, officials warned, those plans are in jeopardy.

White House officials have repeatedly said they are out of money for vaccines, testing and treatment. On Tuesday’s call, administration officials who declined to be identified by name, offered more specifics than in the past. They said the administration wants to place new orders for monoclonal antibody treatments — including Evusheld, a drug authorized to protect high-risk American from Covid-19 — by the end of March, but will be unable to do so without additional funding.

The federal government has been purchasing the treatments from manufacturers and providing them to the public free of charge. But in order to keep the treatments free for as long as possible, the senior officials said the administration expects to expects to start sending smaller quantities of them to states beginning next week.

On Capitol Hill, the fate of the Covid relief bill is unclear. House Democrats had discussed bringing the measure to the floor for a vote this week, but it is unclear whether they would do so if it were not guaranteed to pass the Senate, where Republicans have objected to approving any more spending that is not paid for.

House Democrats initially thought they had addressed those objections by taking money from other programs offset the $15.6 billion, including $7 billion from relief funds allocated to the states. But governors balked, which prompted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to withdraw the Covid funding from the $1.5 trillion comprehensive spending package approved last week.

As coronavirus cases surge across the Asia-Pacific region, countries that were once similarly stringent in their virus control measures are taking drastically divergent paths with the pandemic now in its third year.

In mainland China and Hong Kong, the spike in cases has led to clampdowns reminiscent of the early days of the virus’s spread. On the mainland, production lines have been halted, malls and convention centers have closed, travel has been cut off between cities, and the authorities are attempting to test entire cities for the virus. In Hong Kong, new quarantine centers are being built, and grocery store shelves have emptied.

Much of the rest of the region, however, has stayed the course in easing social restrictions and border controls, following in the steps of the United States and Europe, where normal life has mostly resumed despite continuing deaths and infections.

Australia, which reopened to vaccinated tourists last month, said this week that it would lift a two-year ban on cruise ships, and some states have eased masking requirements. South Korea has stopped mandating QR-code check-ins at restaurants and businesses, and has discontinued efforts to trace the contacts of each positive case. Next week, the country is scrapping quarantine requirements for incoming travelers.

Japan, which has maintained some of the tightest entry barriers, is also considering removing quarantine requirements for foreign businesspeople and students. More Southeast Asian countries are admitting tourists, though travelers were frustrated with unclear guidelines on quarantines and testing.

The shift throughout much of Asia, which has come as vaccinations have become widespread and the Omicron variant has thwarted many control measures, is a marked contrast to the first two years of the pandemic. Over that period, the cautious, restrictive approach prevalent in Asia kept infection rates and deaths far lower than in the West.

Now, the region is seeing some of the world’s steepest spikes in cases. South Korea and Vietnam are logging record daily infections, while China is being plagued by outbreaks in two-thirds of its provinces, with case levels the highest they have been since the initial outbreak in Wuhan.

China, Hong Kong and Taiwan are maintaining a “zero Covid” approach, attempting to stamp out outbreaks as they happen and doubling down on the drastic measures that have been the mainstay of their governments’ coronavirus responses.

China has restricted 24 million residents in the northeastern province of Jilin from moving between cities or leaving the region. And the Chinese government remains concerned about lagging vaccination rates among older people, who are most at risk of death from the virus.

— Victoria Kim

Trucks are being delayed by the testing of drivers. Container rates are rising as ships wait for many hours at ports. Products are piling up in warehouses.

As Chinese officials scramble to contain the country’s worst outbreak of Covid-19 since early 2020, they are imposing lockdowns and restrictions that are adding chaos to global supply chains. The measures in China, home to about one-third of global manufacturing, are disrupting the production of finished goods like Toyota and Volkswagen cars and Apple’s iPhones, as well as components such as circuit boards and computer cables.

Cases rose on Tuesday to more than 5,000 new infections nationwide. That tally is small compared to many other large countries’. But China has taken a zero tolerance approach to outbreaks that calls for stringent lockdowns as well as mass testing and quarantine in government facilities.

Because several of the country’s largest industrial cities are now fighting outbreaks, such measures are taking a toll on the factory and transportation networks that are the backbone of China’s manufacturing.

Officials in Beijing and an ever-lengthening list of cities and provinces say that the virus is still spreading and that the government must take ever tougher measures to stop it.

The British government said on Monday that it would scrap its remaining international travel measures this week, noting it was one of the first major economies to do so and calling the move a “landmark moment.”

After nearly two years, Britain has been at the forefront of efforts to end coronavirus pandemic restrictions and shift toward a strategy of living with the virus, relying on vaccines to offer protections.

“These changes are possible due to our vaccine rollout,” Grant Shapps, the British Transport Secretary, said on Twitter, “and mean greater freedom in time for Easter.”

According to the British government, about 86 percent of the population has received a second vaccine dose and 67 percent a booster or third dose.

On Feb. 24, the government stopped legally requiring people in England to self-isolate if they tested positive for the virus; Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which set health measures separately, have also moved to ease restrictions. Since then, cases have gone up, but the number of deaths has stayed stable, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Starting on 4 a.m. on Friday, travelers will no longer be required to fill out a passenger locator form with details about their trip and their vaccination status. Those who are not fully vaccinated will no longer be required to get tested to enter the country.

“Today’s announcement sends a clear message to the world — the U.K. travel sector is back,” Tim Alderslade, the chief executive of Airlines UK, a trade group, said in a statement. “We can now look forward to the return to pre-Covid normality.”

Last month, Iceland announced it would drop coronavirus requirements at its border regardless of the traveler’s vaccination status. In Ireland, starting on Mar. 6, entering passengers were no longer required to show proof of vaccination status or fill out a passenger locator form.

London’s Heathrow Airport said that starting Wednesday, masks would no longer be mandated in the airport’s terminals, rail stations or office buildings. Masks are already no longer required indoors in England, but the airport said in a statement that it still strongly encouraged people to wear them.

British Airways, the U.K. flag carrier, and the British airline Virgin Atlantic said they were also revising their mask requirements.

As of Wednesday, passengers on British Airways flights will only have to wear masks onboard if their destinations require it, Jason Mahoney, British Airways’ chief operating officer, said in a statement.

Corneel Koster, the chief customer and operating officer for Virgin Atlantic, said that the airline would also scrap mask requirements on routes where international mask-wearing regulations did not apply, starting from flights to the Caribbean from Heathrow and Manchester.

“Customers should have the personal choice whether to wear a mask onboard,” Mr. Koster said in a statement, adding that masks would still be required on many of their routes, including those into and out of the United States, until at least April 18.

Over the past six months, the Transportation Security Administration ramped up civil citations to passengers, mostly aboard airplanes, who refused to comply with mask mandates, slapping them with more than $640,000 in proposed fines, according to a government report released on Monday.

It was a stark increase compared with a six-month period from February to Sepember of last year, when the T.S.A. issued more than 2,000 warnings and fined just 10 passengers a total of $2,350, according to a news release in October.

In total, between Feb. 2, 2021, and March 7, 2022, the agency fined 922 people for violating mask mandates and issued 2,709 warnings, the report, by the Government Accountability Office, said.

The wearing of masks to stop the spread of the coronavirus became a cultural flash point during the early months of the pandemic and has continued to be polarizing.

Last week the Biden administration extended the mask mandate for air travel and public transportation to April 18, while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reviews the policy to see if it is still necessary.

Both the T.S.A. and the Federal Aviation Administration investigate incidents in which people do not comply with mask mandates. The T.S.A.’s authority is not limited to air travel, but covers airports and other modes of public transportation. During 2021, the F.A.A. proposed more than $5 million in fines for unruly airplane passengers; most of the incidents were mask related.

R. Carter Langston, a spokesman for the T.S.A., said the process for reporting incidents became better understood in the past six months, which is why the citations and penalties increased so significantly.

In late October, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi, urged the T.S.A. to enforce more penalties.

The report did not include any recommendations for the agency.

The N.B.A. fined the Brooklyn Nets $50,000 for allowing guard Kyrie Irving to enter the team’s home locker room during Sunday’s game against the Knicks. Mr. Irving has not been vaccinated against Covid-19 and thus was not allowed to be with the team at Barclays Center.

Mr. Irving had attended the game as a spectator, with a seat in the front row.

Under New York City law, Mr. Irving cannot play in games at Barclays Center because of a vaccine mandate for New York City-based workers who perform in-person work.

While Mayor Eric Adams loosened some vaccine requirements earlier this month, he has left in place the private-sector mandate. Under the N.B.A.’s health and safety protocols, teams must follow local decrees.

The Nets declined to comment.

During a public appearance on Sunday, Mr. Adams responded to a heckler who urged him to let Mr. Irving play: “Listen, you’re right. Kyrie can play tomorrow: Get vaccinated.”

The Nets forward Kevin Durant called the rule “ridiculous” after the game against the Knicks. He also criticized the mayor.

“It just feels like, at this point now, somebody is trying to make a statement or point to flex their authority,” Mr. Durant told reporters. “Everybody out here is looking for attention. That’s what I feel like the mayor wants right now: some attention.”

Minutes after the N.B.A. announced the Nets’ fine on Monday, Mr. Durant issued a statement through the Nets and softened his stance toward Mr. Adams.

“The last two years have been a difficult and painful time for New Yorkers, as well as a very confusing time with the changing landscape of the rules and mandates,” the statement read. “I do appreciate the task the mayor has in front of him with all the city has been through. My frustration with the situation doesn’t change the fact that I will always be committed to helping the communities and cities I live in and play in.”

Mr. Irving’s vaccination status has vexed the Nets for the entire season. He has played in only 18 of the team’s 68 games, in part because the mandate has barred him from playing home games, and he has refused to get vaccinated. Mr. Irving is allowed to play in road games where cities do not have vaccine mandates. Only Toronto, where the Raptors play, prohibits unvaccinated visiting players from competing.

Supplies of Covid-19 vaccines in the lowest-income countries are growing more plentiful, but they are often an unpredictable hodgepodge, arriving on an irregular schedule, making planning difficult. Underfunded health systems still lack the storage, personnel and transportation needed to carry out broad vaccination campaigns.

Scientific understanding is continuously evolving about what it takes to achieve full and strong protection against existing and new coronavirus variants. The United States and many wealthy countries have been pushing booster shots from Pfizer and Moderna, which use new technology seen as the gold standard, in line with the latest thinking about the best chance for protection.

But African countries continue to rely in part on products and dosing schedules that many researchers believe offer lower levels of protection, further clouding the prospect of stopping potential variants. Many are sticking with regimens that are no longer preferred by the World Health Organization, which developing countries look to for guidance on how and when to give Covid vaccines.

In Sierra Leone, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is still being used as a single shot, although the W.H.O. recommended in December that it should be given as two doses when possible.

“What we say is, better one dose than zero,” Austin Demby, Sierra Leone’s health minister, said in an interview in the capital, Freetown. “And I would prefer two doses any time. But the logistics of it is just unbelievable. Imagine trying to track these multiple vaccinations, different dates, different times, different expiration dates. It’s a medley of protocols. It’s a nightmare.”

With Covid vaccination rates averaging about 14 percent across the continent, public health experts expect Africa to experience a fifth wave of the virus in the coming months, potentially from a new variant that could be more lethal.

The target in Sierra Leone is to give primary immunizations to 40 percent of the population by June, but Dr. Demby acknowledged that this is hugely ambitious. Currently the figure is just 12 percent, and almost no one has received a booster shot.

When the pandemic hit two years ago, the United States faced an acute shortage of reliable coronavirus tests. It was the nation’s first major pandemic failure, blinding health experts and the public to the spread of the virus and allowing the pathogen to spread across the country unchecked. And for much of 2020, getting tested required waiting hours just to be swabbed and a week or longer for results.

Now, hundreds of millions of rapid, at-home tests are pouring into the American market every month. The federal government is mailing out free tests, Americans are trading swabbing tips on social media and children are spitting into collection tubes at school.

The flashiest developments in medicine typically involve treatments and cures, but the pandemic has been a case study in the importance of diagnostics, our first line of defense against disease.

Over the last two years, a group of researchers at Emory and other Atlanta institutions has played a key, but largely hidden, role in getting tests into the hands of Americans, working with the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration.

More than 200 physicians, engineers, biochemists and other researchers have worked late nights and early mornings to accelerate the development of new tests and ensure that existing products can detect an alphabet of new variants, including Omicron.

Developing new tests, especially those designed to be used by the average consumer, is tricky, and the work that the Atlanta team has done illustrates how much meticulous research is required to get it right. The team’s work also provides a model that could help us be better prepared for future pandemics and usher in a new era of at-home diagnosis for all kinds of diseases.

Australia will lift a ban on cruise ships at the country’s ports next month, the government said on Tuesday, citing medical advice that the measure was no longer needed to help curb the spread of the coronavirus.

The measure, first enforced in March 2020, will not be renewed on April 17, though some steps will continue to be required, including identifying the risk of disease among passengers and mandating that each has had at least two doses of a vaccination against the virus, the government said.

“Lifting the cruise ban is consistent with the reopening of Australia’s international border,” Greg Hunt, Australia’s minister for health, said in a statement, adding that the change in the rules showed Australia had “successfully navigated” its response to the pandemic.

The move is part of a shift away from stringent travel restrictions designed to help stop the spread of the coronavirus. On Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changed the risk of traveling by cruise ship from “high” to “moderate.”

In 2019, before the beginning of the pandemic, more than 600,000 cruise ship passengers, and close to 350 boats, landed in Australia, according to the country’s minister for home affairs, Karen Andrews. Their return was a key part of the government’s plan to help the country’s economy recover, she added.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, at least one in seven people in Australia have been infected, a total of 3.6 million cases, according to data from the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. About 81 percent of the population has received two doses of the vaccine.