Biden pledges to deliver coronavirus relief without Republican support

WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden said on Friday he has to "act fast" to push a huge new economic relief package through Congress, even without Republican support, because many Americans are near the "breaking point."

"I see enormous pain in this country, a lot of folks out of work, a lot of folks going hungry," Biden said in a White House speech. "I believe the American people are looking right now to their government for help... so I’m going to act. I’m going to act fast."

Biden said he wanted bipartisan support for the $1.9 trillion package, which will finance the struggling national coronavirus vaccine rollout and provide economic aid for Americans, including $1,400 in stimulus checks.

But the Democratic leader said his main priority was rescuing a country where many are "reaching the breaking point." "I would like to be doing it with the support of Republicans... but they are just not willing to go as far as I think we have to go."

"We can reduce suffering in this country," Biden said. "I truly believe real help is on the way."The US Senate passed a budget resolution late on Friday that will allow Democrats to pass President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package without Republican support. Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote to make it 51-50 in the early morning showdown, concluding a process known as a "vote-a-rama" in which senators addressed dozens of amendments to the resolution.

Some drew support from both parties, such as an amendment seeking to bar high income Americans from receiving $1,400 Covid-19 relief checks. The vote was a procedural one that did not approve Biden’s first big legislative initiative itself.

Rather, it set the stage for Democrats to be able to pass it on a party line vote, without the risk of a filibuster by Republicans, many of whom oppose Biden’s bill because they say it is too expensive.

The House already passed a budget resolution earlier this week but it will have to be reconciled with the Senate version. Biden has reached out to Republicans on the Covid package but warned that he is willing to act without them, saying the government must act with urgency as the pandemic continues to strangle the economy and has caused a death toll of more than 450,000. After the vote, Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer said, "this was a giant first step, a step in concord."

But Senator John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas, argued that most of the money from the last relief bill passed by Congress in December has not even been disbursed yet. "This reconciliation process is designed not to encourage bipartisanship, not to encourage negotiation, not to get bipartisan buy-in," Cornyn said.

"What do our Democratic colleagues want to do? They want to continue to shovel money out the door.European nations need to work more closely with drug firms to increase the pace of coronavirus inoculations, the WHO said on Friday, as Johnson & Johnson pushed for its jab to become the third approved for use in the United States.EU chiefs have engaged in bitter public rows with firms over supply shortages and legal obligations, as a slow vaccine rollout has sparked public anger and plunged the bloc’s leadership into crisis.

"We need to join up to speed up vaccinations," the World Health Organization’s Europe director Hans Kluge told AFP in an interview. "Otherwise, competing pharmaceutical companies (must) join efforts to drastically increase production capacity... that’s what we need," he added.

In a sign of Europe’s increasing urgency, top EU diplomat Josep Borrell said he hoped Russia’s Sputnik V jab would be approved for use in Europe soon. "It’s good news for the whole of mankind because it means we will have more tools to fight the pandemic," he said during a visit to Moscow.

Experts have warned that vaccines will only control the contagion -- which has killed more than two million since emerging in late 2019 -- if the whole world is covered. Although more than 115 million shots have so far been administered, most have been in high-income countries. Kluge reiterated the WHO’s call for rich countries to help poorer parts of the world, urging them to donate spare doses after inoculating the most vulnerable parts of their populations.

Drug firm Johnson & Johnson has asked US regulators to authorise its vaccine, which requires only one dose and can be stored at normal refrigeration temperatures -- unlike the other two jabs currently in use. The firm has said it is on track to supply 100 million doses to the US if authorised, a major boost to the hardest-hit nation in the world.

But trials have shown the J&J shot is not as effective against the highly transmissible variant first identified in South Africa that is rapidly spreading around the world. The South Africa variant and another first uncovered in England are causing increasing alarm across the world, with experts in Germany warning that they had given the pandemic "another boost".