The Biden administration on Wednesday launched a new website to provide a clearinghouse of information on COVID-19 as part of a continuing effort to prepare Americans to live with the coronavirus.

The U.S. government will run out of supplies of COVID-19 treatments known as monoclonal antibodies as soon as late May and will have to scale back plans to get more unless Congress provides more funding, the White House said on March 15.

The White House said on March 14 that the Omicron BA.2 sub-variant of COVID-19 had been circulating in the United States for some time, with roughly 35,000 cases at the moment, and more money was needed to help fight it.

Top U.S. health officials on March 2 laid out a national blueprint to manage COVID-19 going forward, vowing to prepare for any new variant outbreaks without shutting down schools and businesses and calling for additional funding from Congress.

The Biden administration is seeking $30 billion in additional funds from Congress to fight the COVID-19 pandemic to bolster vaccines, treatments, testing supply and research, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The World Health Organization indicated WHO is tracking four Omicron subvariants: BA.1, BA.1.1, BA.2 and BA.3. BA.2 has a growth advantage over BA.1, the variant responsible for the recent Omicron surge.

Jon Bigelow, Thayer Pond Solutions

Each new president enters the White House with big dreams and unique challenges. For President Joe Biden, 2021 was dominated by the evolving COVID-19 pandemic, an historically difficult transition of power, and a focus on packing an ambitious combination of economic relief, infrastructure investment, and social spending initiatives into a handful of multi-trillion dollar omnibus bills to push through a tightly-divided Congress.

The COVID-19 pandemic that became evident in the United States in early 2020 had a profound and disruptive effect upon cancer research and treatment, but the lessons learned can be used to improve healthcare delivery in multiple indications, according to the AACR Report on the Impact of COVID-19 on Cancer Research and Patient Care that was released February 9th.

More than 100,000 Americans died from diabetes in 2021, marking the second consecutive year for that grim milestone and spurring a call for a federal mobilization similar to the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Kate Rawson, one of the most insightful and practical observers of the health policy scene in Washington, offers the Coalition for Healthcare Communication her well-informed analysis and a Q&A format.