With the highest number of cases and fatalities, the US remains the worst-hit country by the Covid pandemic….reports Asian Lite News
The US Senate has passed a bill to end the national Covid-19 emergency which was declared by former President Donald Trump on March 13, 2020.
The 68-23 vote on Wednesday was overwhelmingly bipartisan and the joint resolution, which cleared the House earlier this year, now heads to President Joe Biden, reports CNN.
A White House official told CNN that while the President “strongly opposes” this bill, the administration is already winding down the emergency by May 11, the date previously announced for the end of the authority.
“If the Senate passed the measure and it heads to Biden’s desk, he will sign it, and the administration will continue working with agencies to wind down the national emergency with as much notice as possible to Americans who could potentially be impacted,” the official was quoted as saying.
The White House said in January that Biden “strongly opposes” the Republican resolution to end the Covid-19 emergency, but did not threaten a veto.
House Democrats largely voted against the bill when it was brought to the floor in February except for 11 Democrats who joined Republicans in support.
With the highest number of cases and fatalities, the US remains the worst-hit country by the Covid pandemic.
As of Thursday morning, the country’s caseload and death toll stood at 106,163,408 and 1,154,353, respectively.
Meanwhile, more than 15.5 million children in the US are reported to have tested positive for Covid-19 since the onset of the pandemic in early 2020, according to a new report.
The report by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Children’s Hospital Association said that over 66,000 of these cases have been added in the past 4 weeks, Xinhua news agency reported.
Over 13,000 child Covid-19 cases were reported in the week ending March 23, it added.
Over the past six months, weekly reported child cases in the US have plateaued at an average of about 30,000 cases, according to the report.
Reported cases are likely a “substantial undercount” of Covid-19 cases among children, it noted.
There is a need to collect more age-specific data to assess the severity of illness related to new variants as well as potential longer-term effects, said the report.
It is important to recognize there are immediate effects of the pandemic on children’s health, but importantly we need to identify and address the long-lasting impacts on the physical, mental, and social well-being of this generation of children and youth, said the AAP.
