Why I’m stocking up on masks and tests We’re running out of money to address the pandemic, and Congress won’t act | Post Opinions

CEID Faculty Dr. Syra Madad shares her opinion on COVID-19 funding:

“Congress’s inability to provide continued funding for the country’s pandemic response gives me deja vu. In December 2019, I and other experts warned that a program protecting us from a deadly pandemic was about to expire. Three days later, news broke about a cluster of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause, which would turn out to be the novel coronavirus. Despite the warnings, it wasn’t until the following March that Congress appropriated funds to respond to the coronavirus. By then, some states had implemented stay-at-home orders to prevent further spread of the coronavirus.

You’d think that two years after that misstep, our leaders would understand how costly it is in lives and dollars to dither when a threat seems far off, only to scramble into action when it arrives at your doorstep. But the unfortunate cycle of panic and neglect that has marked our response to previous pathogens remains unchanged. As we saw with anthrax in 2001, H1N1 in 2009, Ebola in 2014, Zika in 2016, as the threat abates, so does the funding…”

Read the full piece here