Another impact: shipments of monoclonal antibody treatments to states will be cut by 30% next week, an official told reporters. Even after cutting back shipments, the White House expects the nation's supply of those treatments could run out as soon as May.The Biden administration is canceling plans to buy more of the treatment next week because of the lack of funding, the official said.
Without more funding, the government cannot buy more oral antiviral treatments like Paxlovid beyond the 20 million treatments already secured, and needs to scale back planned purchases of preventative treatments for immunocompromised people, the White House said. The White House also said it will not be able to provide help to domestic manufacturers of at-home COVID tests beyond June, which it said will lead to diminished testing capacity."After spending the last year building up our testing capacity, Congress now risks squandering that capacity heading into the second half of this year," a second official told reporters.