Moving Beyond the Coronavirus Crisis: The Biden Administration’s Progress in Combating the Pandemic and Plan for the Next Phase

On Wednesday, March 30, at 2:00 p.m. ET, Rep. James E. Clyburn, Chairman of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, will hold a remote hearing with senior Biden Administration officials on “Moving Beyond the Coronavirus Crisis:  The Biden Administration’s Progress in Combating the Pandemic and Plan for the Next Phase.”  The hearing will focus on the progress made over the past two years in combating the coronavirus and examine how the Biden Administration’s National COVID-19 Preparedness Plan—if fully funded by Congress—will continue to protect Americans from the virus while minimizing the need for future pandemic-related disruptions.

Two years after the World Health Organizations declared a global pandemic in March 2020, Americans now have widespread access to highly effective vaccines, therapeutics, tests, and other tools to prevent and protect against the coronavirus.  As Dr. Leana Wen, Professor of Health Policy and Management at George Washington University, stated last week at a Select Subcommittee roundtable discussion, “We have far more tools than before and science has really delivered.  We know, for example, that individuals who are vaccinated and boosted are generally very well protected from severe illness.  And now we also have treatments, we have testing, we have other tools that help us to be able to live with COVID.  And so, for the majority of Americans, it is possible to return back to pre-pandemic normal.” 

Senior Biden Administration officials will provide an update on the state of the pandemic and discuss the Administration’s recently announced National COVID-19 Preparedness Plan, a blueprint for our nation to protect against and treat the coronavirus, prepare for new variants, keep schools and businesses open safely, and continue leading the global vaccination effort.  In laying out this plan, the witnesses will highlight the need for Congress to provide funding to carry it out—and explain that failure to do so would increase the risk of a renewed crisis.  Dr. Robert Wachter, Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine at University of California, San Francisco, emphasized during last week’s roundtable discussion:  “We all want to go back to normal; we all want to put this behind us; we all want to move out of an emergency mode.  But that is not the time to withhold investment; it’s the time to redouble our investments.”