OPINION:
Anticipating the return of cold and flu season, President Biden is begging for money to fund a new stockpile of updated COVID vaccines. Americans can only hope their hard-earned dollars are not once again squandered by the billions on experimental medicine that they either don’t need or don’t want, or that doesn’t work.
The emergence of several new viral strains, followed by a 19% weekly uptick in hospitalizations, has prompted the administration to seek the infusion of cash to buy COVID vaccines. Fresh from August recess, members of Congress must deal with the presidential request as they figure out how to fund the federal government before the spending authority expires at the end of the month.
A year ago, Mr. Biden made a similar appeal for $9.3 billion in vaccines. Congress refused. With first lady Jill Biden testing positive and her husband once again sporting a mask in the White House, they’re hoping to revive the panicked days of unlimited spending in the name of battling a pandemic.
More than 309 million doses of vaccines, or nearly one-third of the doses manufactured by Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and Novavax, went unused by their expiration dates, prompting them to be discarded or given to foreign nations. The price of this waste: more than $2.2 billion, according to the Daily Mail.
That figure may not faze the overspender-in-chief, but it should arrest the attention of lawmakers confronted with a national debt that has increased by nearly $10 trillion since the public health emergency was declared in 2020.
Believing the promises of immunity, 81% of the U.S. population eagerly lined up for the initial shots in 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with 70% coming back for a second injection.
When the bivalent boosters became available last year, only 17% bothered to roll up their sleeves. Older adults, often with compromised health, represent the largest cohort who show up for each COVID shot. Still, even their enthusiasm for the jab lags, with only 43% seeking the boosters.
Americans have learned the shortcomings of modern medicine the hard way: Despite widespread inoculation, 77% of the U.S. population 16 or older had suffered at least one prior infection of the virus by the end of 2022, the CDC reported.
So it’s not surprising that nearly four years on, vaccine fatigue has become entrenched. A May survey published by the Pew Research Center found that while 62% of respondents said the benefits of the vaccines outweigh the risks, 54% gauged the preventive health benefits to be only medium to low and 58% said the risk of side effects are medium to high.
With as much as $600 billion in COVID relief funds stolen through fraudulent claims and the fiscal 2023 deficit approaching $2 trillion, the trashing of vaccines worth a couple of billion dollars may seem minor. Still, Congress should avoid overspending on fresh supplies of shots that demonstrate limited efficacy in preventing disease.
Americans are sick of wasting money.
