Letter to Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, Chuck Schumer, Senate Majority Leader, Kevin McCarthy, Minority Leader of the House, Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader - Governor Polis Urges Congress to Invest in Lifesaving COVID Vaccines for All, Continue Program for Uninsured Coloradans and Americans to Benefit from Free Testing, Treatment, and Vaccines

Letter

In March of 2020, Colorado had its first case of the COVID-19. Since then, the Polis administration, in
partnership with local and federal governments, has responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by quickly
scaling up free testing sites, distributing vaccines, ensuring health care systems have the personal
protective equipment and resources they need, deploying resources to congregate settings, and protecting hospital capacity. While the pandemic has been difficult in Colorado and worldwide, our state's response story is one of resilience, innovation, problem solving, and agility. We are now planning and preparing for future waves of this virus or the next pandemic and urge you to immediately invest in supplemental COVID-19 funding to secure additional therapeutics, vaccines, testing supplies, and a continuation of the HRSA Uninsured Program.

As a state, we can take action on many of the challenges we face, but we cannot solve all the existing
challenges without federal action and support. One hard learned lesson from this pandemic is that states do not alone have the buying power or coordination authority for distributing critical supplies to respond to this pandemic, this responsibility must live with the federal government to save the most amount of American lives. The ability of individual states to move between low levels of disease transmission and potential surges will be more effective when all 50 states are ready. This virus moves incredibly fast. Waiting to provide additional funding once we are in our next surge will be too late.

FUNDING FOR VACCINES
We urge Congress to secure funding to purchase enough booster vaccine doses for all Americans and
invest in variant-specific vaccines or a pan-COVID vaccine protecting against a range of variants should the science and data demonstrate the need. With the FDA's recent authorization of a fourth dose for adults 50 and older, the need to secure and expand our nation's COVID-19 vaccine supply has never been greater. There are 1,069,168 adults 50 and older in Colorado who have received an initial booster dose who will soon be eligible for a second booster dose. We have an estimated 529,000 doses of mRNA vaccine in the field across the state of Colorado today. While our daily vaccine administration numbers have decreased since the initial booster push in late 2021, hundreds of Coloradans continue to initiate their primary COVID-19 vaccine series every week, especially among Hispanic communities across Colorado. Without the federal purchase of additional COVID-19 vaccines, an inequitable distribution of existing vaccine supply is likely -- with individuals with more resources and greater access easily securing their fourth dose while our communities of color struggle to obtain their first.

FUNDING FOR THERAPEUTICS
We urge Congress to secure funding to purchase greater quantities of COVID-19 therapeutic treatments, particularly oral antivirals. With the potential for a nationwide pause in the distribution of sotrovimab due to its ineffectiveness against the BA.2 subvariant, oral antivirals, in particular Paxlovid, are our best and most convenient treatment tools to keep people out of the hospital. We have efficiently provided these life-saving treatments to as many Coloradans as possible but during our surges, we have always been limited by our federal supply. COVID-19 is a preventable and treatable disease. To better transition from pandemic response to more traditional management of disease nationwide, we need universal test-to-treat programs. To achieve universal test-to-treat, our supply of oral antivirals needs to increase drastically and more clinics and pharmacies need to be enrolled at the federal level to streamline ordering and access to these medications.

FUNDING FOR HRSA UNINSURED PROGRAM
We urge Congress to secure funding to continue the HRSA COVID-19 Uninsured Program for testing,
vaccines and treatments. We are deeply concerned about the sun setting of the HRSA Uninsured Program on April 5 and are currently gauging the anticipated impacts to our enrolled COVID-19 provider networks for therapeutics and vaccines. The discontinuation of the HRSA Uninsured Program will make it more expensive to provide life saving vaccines and treatments to uninsured Americans. Some providers may be able to absorb these additional costs, but many others will not. We have already had some providers decide to start charging people without insurance for therapeutics. In surveying our vaccine provider network, we have heard from many who serve predominantly uninsured Coloradans who stated they will have no choice but to disenroll from the COVID-19 Vaccination Program. This would effectively remove access to the lifesaving vaccine and treatments for many uninsured individuals, increasing the disparity they already experience in navigating the healthcare system.

Let us be clear. Any loss of life is tragic and we are all suffering from the loved ones who are no longer with us due to this brutal pandemic. But losing lives at this juncture when COVID 19 is now preventable through our effective and safe vaccines and is treatable with the many therapeutics is unthinkable. COVID-19 is now preventable and treatable; it is not acceptable for more American lives to be lost due to Congressional inaction and politics -- that would be immoral. We have a duty to protect our people and we need federal action to do so.

Sincerely,

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