Congress Turned Its Back On Older Americans By Rejecting Pandemic Aid
And now plans to welcome undocumented immigrants from around the world.
Americans over the age of 50 comprised over 92% of all deaths from COVID-19 in the United States.
So preventing and treating the spread of COVID-19 has special significance for older Americans and so does the failure of the U.S. Congress to pass $15.6 billion in pandemic aid in an omnibus spending bill earlier this month.
Democratic President Joe Biden Wednesday begged the Democratic-controlled Congress to reconsider its decision. “This isn’t partisan. It’s medicine,” he pleaded.
Earlier this month, the Biden administration warned that if the pandemic aid bill is not passed, the government must cut back on support for "lifesaving tools" like monoclonal antibody treatments, testing capacity and care for uninsured COVID patients.
Covid-19 deaths have dropped in recent weeks but Biden administration officials warned that failure to provide pandemic aid now will leave the federal government unequipped to deal with a future surge.
Unprepared for Omicron
The Biden administration knows the pitfalls all too well, as it appeared to be caught completely unprepared for the Omicron variant of the virus. Omicron was considered to be less lethal but far more transmissible than earlier variants.
It’s not clear how the Omicron strain hit older people because we’re still going through it and the media isn’t much interested in that demographic.
However, people over the age of 75 who were vaccinated but had not gotten boosters were particularly vulnerable. In some states, including Arizona, only about a third of nursing home residents had gotten life-saving booster shots.
Mass Immigration Ahead
Meanwhile, for reasons that are completely incomprehensible, the Biden administration is on the verge of lifting CDC public health order Title 42 that has restricted immigration of “noncitizens” (excluding unaccompanied children) since 2020.
According to the American Immigration Council, apprehensions at the border in 2021 hit levels not seen in 20 years and over 1.5 million people arrived at the border and crossed for the first time. Many were single adults. Border Patrol agents carried out more than1,000,000 expulsions and deportations.
The Biden administration is preparing to welcome even more immigrants from around the world than were seen in 2021 - many presumably infected by a new form of COVID-19 that is highly contagious. These immigrants will disperse unimpeded throughout the country.
Children
Democrats are under extreme pressure to find some way to provide pandemic aid because it could be political suicide if America undergoes what Hong Kong is experiencing.
According to Lancet, a medical journal, several hundred care homes for the elderly and people with disabilities are experiencing outbreaks. Reports have emerged of overflowing mortuaries and bodies piling up in hospitals.
The researchers say the Omicron sub-variant that is headed toward the U.S. has led to a seven-fold higher death rate among hospitalized children than influenza, while 15 per cent of young patients had developed neurological complications.
It is believed more than half of the city’s 7.5 million people have been infected.