Senator Coons statement on COVID-19 emergency funding deal

Statement

"I am deeply disappointed by the outcome of negotiations on the COVID-19 emergency supplemental package announced today, a short-sighted agreement that contains not a penny to distribute vaccines around the world to prevent the emergence of more deadly and transmissable variants. I'd like to thank those colleagues of mine, including Senator Schumer, who joined me in fighting for international funding in this package. Unfortunately, despite tireless efforts, the bill will not include any of those funds.

"Failing to include any international spending in this bill is a grave mistake, but it goes far beyond that. It is fiscally foolish, risking the chance that tens of millions of vaccines our government has already paid for go to waste instead of being delivered across the developing world as intended. We also risk passing up the opportunity to show the dozens of countries who have relied on Chinese and Russian vaccines that didn't work against the Omicron variant that we can be a reliable partner at a time when we need to unite the world more than ever. 2.8 billion people worldwide are unvaccinated, and the longer we fail to provide them with shots, the more likely it becomes that another, more transmissible or deadly variant will find its way to our shores, infecting Americans and threatening our economic recovery.

"I understand that domestic public health spending is also urgently needed, and so I intend to vote for this bill. However, this is only a partial step, and I will push my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to pass a robust international funding bill in the coming weeks to address pandemic-related needs and the growing global hunger and food security crisis."

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