U.S. still not prepared for next pandemic: report

NEW YORK, July 18 (Xinhua) -- As COVID-19's new Omicron subvariant BA.5 spreads quickly across the country, the U.S. government has once again been caught flat-footed against the virus that has taken the lives of over a million Americans, showing that the country's public health infrastructure still has some gaping holes, reported The Boston Globe on Sunday.

"The United States, for example, is far behind its peers when it comes to administering boosters, with only a third of the population having received at least one booster," said the report.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been slow to issue effective guidelines on BA.5, including the need to mask up, and "states have only followed that horse-and-buggy pace," according to the report.

"And for its part, Congress has continued to deny the White House the funds necessary to continue conducting much-needed COVID research," it said.

The recent chain of events should be of grave concern to the Joe Biden administration, said the report, adding that "that's not only because it shows the United States is not ready for controlling diseases in the long term, but also because it underscores the limits of dealing with the current pandemic in the months and years ahead."