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Moving the United States beyond the Covid-19 pandemic will require vigilance for new variants, measures to prevent businesses and schools from shutting down, and continued global vaccine donations, according to a blueprint released Wednesday by the Biden administration. The plan underscores the administration’s shifting focus from responding to the pandemic crisis to a new normal that focuses on managing the disease. But the road map, the result of weeks of work with advisers, state leaders and public health experts, relies heavily on Congress approving billions of dollars in new Covid-19 relief funding. (Armour and Abbott, 3/2)

The 90-page National COVID-19 Preparedness Plan spells out initiatives and investments to continue to drive down serious illness and deaths from the virus, while preparing for potential new variants and providing employers and schools the resources to remain open. “We know how to keep our businesses and our schools open with the tools that we have at our disposal,” said White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients. (Miller, 3/2)

The plan, meant to help the United States transition to what some are calling a “new normal,” has four main goals: protecting against and treating Covid-19; preparing for new variants; avoiding shutdowns; and fighting the virus abroad. But there is a big hitch: Much of the plan requires funding from Congress. The administration recently told congressional officials it could need as much as $30 billion to sustain the pandemic response. One outside adviser to the White House, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, said in an interview that the United States needed to spend much more — on the order of $100 billion over the next year, and billions more after that — to be fully prepared. (Stolberg, 3/2)

For example, expanding the nation's Strategic National Stockpile to now include at-home tests, antiviral pills, and masks for children as the White House envisions, would mark a significant – and expensive – shift for a federal cache once focused on buying up emergency reserves for hospitals and first responders. Supplies in the stockpile had surged thanks in part to previous rounds of pandemic relief money, enabling the federal plan to distribute some 400 million free N95 respirators in the wake of the Omicron wave earlier this year. But officials say ramping up the stockpile to address another wave of the virus in the general population would require significant purchases and planning far beyond its current levels. (Tin, 3/2)

A central part of President Biden’s new COVID strategy — the so-called “test to treat” initiative to enable pharmacies, long-term care facilities and community health centers to test patients and give out antiviral pills on the spot if they test positive — is already underway at many Bay Area health care providers. Doctors and pharmacists have essentially been operating this way for the last few months, since pills first became available, local clinics and long-term care facilities say. However, their ability to do so has been limited by scarce supply of pills, particularly the Pfizer drug Paxlovid, and the very short window of time between symptom onset and when patients must start taking the drug. So Biden’s “test to treat” plan would ostensibly expand these operations, which are still relatively small, to more locations and improve access to the medication for more people. (Ho, 3/2)

Three dozen Republican senators told the White House on Wednesday that they may be unwilling to approve new coronavirus aid until they first learn how much money the U.S. government has already spent. The early warning arrived in a letter led by Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), just days after the Biden administration asked Congress to approve $30 billion to boost public health as part of a still-forming deal to fund the government and stave off a shutdown at the end of next week. (Romm, 3/2)

President Biden made it clear this week he wants to transition toward a new phase of the Covid-19 pandemic — one where people are “moving forward safely, back to more normal routines,” as he said this week. But formally ending the pandemic is going to be a major headache. The next chapter of the U.S. Covid-19 response will center on how the Biden administration chooses to unwind the tangle of temporary policies put in place to help the country address the virus — with millions of people’s health insurance coverage and billions of dollars at stake. (Cohrs, 3/3)

Joe Manchin is once again setting the agenda for Democrats and says he’s willing to make a deal. They’re listening — cautiously. Hours after President Joe Biden laid out what he hoped to salvage from Democrats’ defunct “Build Back Better” social spending plan, Joe Manchin quickly assembled a counteroffer. It might amount to deja vu for Democrats, many of whom still feel burned from last year’s debacle, yet many in the party are willing to entertain any shot they have to unify while they still have control of Congress. (Everett and Wu, 3/2)