-9999
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, yesterday, Chicago reported its first case of the new coronavirus variant, Omicron. Our State's health officials predicted this day would come; it did. They are actively preparing for additional cases.
The World Health Organization has identified it as a variant of concern. It has the potential for increased transmissibility and could possibly--I underline ``possibly''--evade some protections from existing vaccines.
But as we begin to learn about this variant, some hopeful signs have emerged. On Sunday, Dr. Fauci described early data on the severity of Omicron as ``encouraging.'' Additionally, today, we received preliminary findings that patients are better protected against Omicron with a third Pfizer dose.
And while it is still too soon to draw any definitive conclusions-- too soon--what is clear is that the historic investments we have made-- the Senate and President Biden--these investments in public health are paying off.
Thanks to the American Rescue Plan--which we passed earlier this year on, sadly, a partisan rollcall without a single Republican vote-- America is more prepared. That rescue package not only funded production and distribution of lifesaving vaccines; it paved the way for public health officials to detect and track new variants like Omicron. It provided more than a billion dollars toward expanding and accelerating genomic sequencing, the process that allows us to analyze how the coronavirus is evolving and spreading in realtime, so we can respond.
Thanks to this investment today, America is sequencing roughly 80,000 virus samples a week. Before President Biden took office, we were sequencing fewer than 3,000; now, 80,000 a week. That has made a world of difference when it comes to tracking the spread of a variant.
In less than 2 weeks since the variant was discovered in South Africa, it has been identified in at least 19 States in addition to Illinois.
As we await more data on the risk Omicron poses to the public, here are three things we know. First--and it bears repeating--the best protection is to get vaccinated. Ninety-five percent of Americans are eligible, and 70 percent have already gotten at least one shot. Within days, we will hit the impressive milestone of 200 million Americans getting fully vaccinated. We need to continue to promote this incredible safety tool, and that means booster shots as well.
Second, America must continue to support the global vaccine campaign. As I have said before, COVID doesn't know borders. As long as it is circulating across the globe, the risk of virus mutation growing stronger and roaring back into the United States continues to be real.
Fortunately, the Biden administration has already taken important steps to address global vaccine inequality and get more shots to low- income countries. Just this week, USAID announced a $400 million investment in a new global vaccine access program to deliver vaccines to remote parts of the world.
I just got off the phone with Dr. Atul Gawande, a surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital, a prolific author, and a man who is very insightful. He has agreed to step forward and to work with Administrator Samantha Power at USAID. He is the right person for this job at this very moment. So I encourage my colleagues to let him move off the calendar and into the job as quickly as possible. We need his expertise at USAID.
The third point I would like to make is that we need to build on the American Rescue Plan's investment in public health. Effective public health systems are like smoke detectors: They can alert us to deadly dangers long before they threaten.
At the start of this pandemic, America's public health system had been ignored and underfunded for years. That is the reason why we proposed nearly $10 billion in the Build Back Better plan, which we are currently working on, to improve laboratory capacity, disease detection, the workforce, and public health preparedness. This funding will fortify our public health system at a time when it is absolutely necessary.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source