How a major COVID relapse could soon hit America, and the world

With the impending end of government funding, Americans would have to start paying for their own COVID shots—a disincentive that could further suppress the country’s middling vaccination uptake, currently plateaued at 67 percent “fully” vaccinated, usually with two doses of a messenger-RNA vaccine.

Another likely victim is COVAX, the international vaccine consortium that buys jabs for poorer countries. COVAX has been struggling even before the coming squeeze on U.S. funding. Now an existing shortfall in doses is set to get a lot worse.

Finally, an erosion of federal funding could delay or even kill off efforts to develop new, universal coronavirus vaccines that could work against current and future variants. Experts have pinned their hopes on universal jabs to help the population get ahead of a constantly evolving virus. Without that new vaccine, we’ll always be playing catch-up.