Biden Faces Winter Covid Surge as Funds, Public Interest Dry Up

President Joe Biden is urging a vaccination push as he is braces for a winter wave of Covid-19 cases that could again drive up hospitalizations and deaths, but this time without a blank check to fight the surge.

Joe Biden

Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg

Congressional Republicans have blocked more funding for vaccines and treatments, forcing the government to scrounge what money it can for vaccines and treatments and to lean on the private sector for care. That’s raised questions about whether stocks of tests, vaccines, and Pfizer Inc.’s Paxlovid treatment pills will last.

Biden, hampered by an increasingly shoestring budget, is enlisting US businesses ...