The anti-anti COVID party

Republicans aren’t “merely” anti-vaxx, but just anti-COVID mitigation in general:

The House on Wednesday passed a sprawling $1.5 trillion federal spending bill that includes a huge infusion of aid for war-torn Ukraine and money to keep the government funded through September, after jettisoning a package to fund President Biden’s new Covid-19 response effort.

Bipartisan approval of the first major government spending legislation of Mr. Biden’s presidency marked the first time since he took office that Democrats were able to use their congressional majorities and control of the White House to set funding levels for their priorities, including climate resilience, public education and child care.

But the exclusion of the $15.6 billion pandemic aid package, amid disputes about its cost that threatened to derail the broader legislation, infuriated the White House and frustrated Democratic leaders, leaving the fate of the Biden administration’s coronavirus strategy uncertain.

The president’s team has said it is in urgent need of funding for testing, therapeutics, vaccines and efforts to stop new variants. Officials had initially suggested they needed as much as $30 billion before requesting $22.5 billion, an amount that got whittled down in negotiations with Republicans, who resisted spending any new federal money on the pandemic.

A new variant is going to be bad; the next pandemic is going to be unimaginably bad.