London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Friday, Oct 03, 2025

U.S. to spend $1.7 billion tracking Covid variants as dangerous new strains make up half of all cases

U.S. to spend $1.7 billion tracking Covid variants as dangerous new strains make up half of all cases

The funds will be used to help improve the detection, monitoring and mitigation of "new and potentially dangerous strains," the White House said.
The Biden administration announced Friday it will allocate $1.7 billion toward tracking the highly infectious coronavirus variants that now pose a major threat to the United States’ fight against the pandemic.

The funds, taken from the $1.9 trillion Covid relief plan signed into law last month, will be used to help improve the detection, monitoring and mitigation of “new and potentially dangerous strains,” the White House said in a press release.

The Covid variants now comprise about half of all cases in the U.S., according to the White House. The mutations can be up to 70% more transmissible than the original strain, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said.

Their continued spread “makes the race to stop the transmission even more challenging and threatens to overwhelm our health-care system again in parts of this country,” Walensky said at a press briefing.

She noted that B.1.1.7, the variant originally identified in the United Kingdom, accounted for 44% of U.S. Covid circulation during the week of March 27.

The spread of variants is contributing to a “very concerning” rise in cases, hospitalizations and emergency room visits, Walensky said. Average daily deaths have increased for the third day in a row to more than 700, she said.

The White House said $1 billion of the administration’s latest coronavirus investment will be used to help the CDC and other health officials expand genomic sequencing, which will help them identify mutations.

“The emergence of variants underscores the critical need for rapid and ongoing genomic surveillance,” Walensky said.

The White House said $400 million of the remaining funds “will fuel cutting-edge research into genomic epidemiology” through the establishment of six “centers of excellence” that will form partnerships between health departments and academic institutions.

The final $300 million will go toward strengthening so-called bioinformatics infrastructure, “creating a unified system for sharing and analyzing sequence data in a way that protects privacy but allows more informed decisionmaking,” the White House said.

An initial $240 million tranche of funding will be disbursed to U.S. states and territories in early May, with California, Texas and Florida receiving the largest amounts. The White House said more of the money will be invested over a period of several years.

Health experts continue to push Americans to get vaccinated for Covid.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said Thursday in a congressional hearing that B.1.1.7 is “very well covered by the vaccines that we are using,” and that even with other variants, “if the vaccination doesn’t protect against initial infection, it protects against severe disease.”

“We are in a race between vaccinating as many people as quickly and as expeditiously as we possibly can, and the threat of the resurgence of viruses in our country,” Fauci said.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
Nvidia Pledges Up to $100 Billion Investment in OpenAI to Power Massive AI Data Center Build-Out
U.S. Signals ‘Large and Forceful’ Support for Argentina Amid Market Turmoil
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
Vietnam Faces Up to $25 Billion Export Loss as U.S. Tariffs Bite
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Indonesia Court Upholds Military Law Amid Concerns Over Expanded Civilian Role
Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch Join Trump-Backed Bid to Take Over TikTok
Trump and Musk Reunite Publicly for First Time Since Fallout at Kirk Memorial
Vietnam Closes 86 Million Untouched Bank Accounts Over Biometric ID Rules
×