Biden Update On Covid-19: Congress Closer To Covid Funding

President Biden is shortly due to deliver remarks on the status of Covid-19.

• The presser is scheduled for 13:30 ET 18:30 GMT and a livestream will be available: Here.
• Manu Raju of CNN has reported that: 'Senators [Richard] Burr (R-NC) and [Mitt] Romney (R-UT) are meeting with [Senate Majority Leader Chuck] Schumer (D-NY) this afternoon as Covid-19 aid talks pick up pace. GOP has presented a list of offsets that would be acceptable to them to pay for the $15.6B package — that would come from money included in the CARES law and American Rescue Plan.'
• At the last White House Covid-19 presser the White House Covid-19 Response Team accused Congress of putting the country at risk by failing to approve Covid-19 relief funding to prevent shocks from a new Covid-19 surge.
• The President's presser today come as the Covid-19 variant Omicron BA.2 is now the dominant Covid-19 variant in the United States.
• According to the CDC, BA.2 now comprises more than half of new cases in the US. The subvariant is more transmissible but not more severe than the Omicron variant which caused the Covid-19 surge in January. BA.2 cases nationally are up from 39 percent the last week.