Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” despite President Joe Biden claiming the pandemic was “over,” Congress needs to continue to invest funds into America’s response to COVID.
Co-host Willie Geist asked, “When the president of the United States says the pandemic is over, what should people watching this morning take from that?”
Murthy said, “I feel optimistic about how far we have come. We may forget just what it was like two years ago when schools were shut down, when people were not going to work when we were worried about our own health and safety and the safety of those around us. But right now, if you are updated on your vaccines and if you are a high-risk individual who uses a medication like Paxlovid if you get COVID-19, your chances of dying from COVID are remarkably low. And that is hard fought progress.”
He added, “But here’s one thing I am worried about, Willie. In order to sustain this progress and to continue to advance, in order to develop the next generation of vaccines, especially mucosal vaccines that will help to block transmission even more effectively, we need to sustain our investment in COVID. So, what we can do is look at this like an on and off switch, like if COVID has disappeared. You know, we’ve made tremendous progress, but we still have work to do that’s going to require ongoing investment from Congress, ongoing investment in our country, so that we can continue to make sure everybody in our country has the protection that they need from COVID-19.”
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