ONE Statement on Biden Administration’s disappointing global COVID-19 funding “ask”

WASHINGTON– The ONE Campaign issued the below statement on the news of a tepid, insufficient ask of Congress for COVID-19 resources from the Biden Administration. 

ONE argues the US should contribute an additional $17 billion in global COVID funding to provide critical resources needed to deliver vaccines, tests, and life-saving treatments to low-income countries. 

Tom Hart, President of the ONE Campaign: 

“After two devastating years of this pandemic, US leaders are dropping the ball on fighting COVID-19. Today we learned the Biden Administration briefed Congress on the need for $5 billion in funding from Congress to fight COVID-19. What the world needs, though, is a formal request for $17 billion. The Administration has promised to bring world leaders together to address the pandemic sometime next month; this would be an embarrassing backdrop for U.S. leadership on the issue. At these levels, funding would be insufficient to achieve President Biden’s goal of 70% global vaccination by September–a goal that is already far below pace.

“Underfunding the global response not only risks more variants and our domestic security, it diminishes the United States’ ability to spur other world leaders to action. We cannot win the fight against COVID-19 without U.S. leadership. While I applaud the millions of vaccine doses the U.S. has donated, we cannot stop there and say we’ve done our part. If low income countries don’t have the resources to get those doses into arms, our efforts to narrow global vaccine gaps will stagnate–to the detriment of all of us.”