House passes $8.3 billion package in emergency funding to fight coronavirus outbreak
Washington — The House has overwhelmingly approved an $8.3 billion supplemental package to respond to the coronavirus outbreak. The package, which passed by a vote of 415 to 2, now heads to the Senate where lawmakers are expected to clear the measure Thursday.
House and Senate negotiators reached a deal on the package Wednesday. The amount is far higher than the $2.5 billion originally requested by President Trump, and in line with the $8 billion proposed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
"This legislation is a critical first step to enable a strategic, coordinated, and whole-of-government response to the coronavirus and to keep Americans safe. The Senate should pass it quickly," House Appropriations Committee Chair Nita Lowey said in a statement after the vote.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, a Republican, told reporters Wednesday that the House and Senate had reached a deal. The $8.3 billion includes $7.8 billion in discretionary appropriations, plus $500 million in Medicare telehealth mandatory spending, which would allow Medicare providers to furnish telemedicine services to seniors.
"This should not be about politics; this is about doing our job to protect the American people from a potential pandemic. We worked together to craft an aggressive and comprehensive response that provides the resources the experts say they need to combat this crisis," Shelby said in a statement. "I thank my colleagues for their cooperation and appreciate President Trump's eagerness to sign this legislation and get the funding out the door without delay."
In a statement, Schumer praised the bipartisan efforts to craft the deal.
"Today, Democrats and Republicans in Congress showed they can come together in a bipartisan way to respond to the coronavirus in a swift, smart and strategic way to keep the American people safe," Schumer said. "I'm pleased that this bipartisan agreement rejects the Trump administration's dangerously inadequate proposal and is much closer to the $8.5 billion figure that I believed was more appropriate."
The deal includes funding for research and development of vaccines, support for state and local government, and assistance for small businesses, a House Democratic aide told CBS News. The aide also said that the package includes $300 million to help ensure that all Americans can afford a potential vaccine. The House is expected to consider the emergency supplemental bill on Wednesday afternoon.
The coronavirus that emerged late last year has spread from central China to almost 80 countries, with outbreaks growing fast in South Korea, Italy, Iran and the United States. At least nine people have died of the COVID-19 disease in the U.S., all of them in Washington state and most of them from a single nursing home in the Seattle area.
While the virus' spread has slowed dramatically in China, infections were mounting fast in the U.S. and elsewhere. Almost 130 people in 16 states were infected by Wednesday, including the outbreak in the Seattle area.
The U.S. National Institutes of Health is only about six weeks away from a phase-1 trial on a coronavirus vaccine, the agency's director of allergies and infectious disease, Dr. Anthony Fauci, told a House Appropriations subcommittee on Wednesday. He stressed, however, that actually getting an approved vaccine ready for human use was still a year to 18 months away.
Mr. Trump on Saturday announced new efforts to combat the spread of coronavirus, including new travel restrictions on visitors from Iran and further screening efforts on people coming from South Korea and Italy.
Kimberly Brown and Tucker Reals contributed to this report.