Biden administration warns of impacts to updated vaccine production as it pushes lawmakers for more Covid funding

The Biden administration is ramping up its warnings of a potential fall and winter surge should Congress fail to pass additional Covid-19 supplemental funding, warning of effects to the production of updated vaccines, as well as other potential consequences to testing and treatments.

The warning comes as scientists are working to develop new vaccines that would offer additional protection from infection and severe illness from new variants. The US Food and Drug Administration will make a decision as soon as June on an updated new vaccine, senior administration official told CNN on Monday, based on data from manufacturers Moderna and Pfizer.

That vaccine would be used in the fall and winter, the official said, but warned there will not be resources to procure and distribute a bivalent vaccine -- a vaccine that would combine a currently approved vaccine with an Omicron-specific vaccine, for example -- without additional funding from Congress.