the white house is asking congress for 471 billion in emergency funding for covid19 and monkeypox and to back ukraine in its war with russia as well as spending for natural disasters according to administration officials the wall street journal reported the white house is asking congress for about 224 billion for covid19 vaccines testing programs clinical trials and research congress needs to pass a stopgap spending bill by the end of september lawmakers have been unable to agree on a coronavirus funding package for months with republicans saying any additional funding must be paid for after the country spent heavily since 2020 to fight the virus and provide economic aid the news comes as us known cases of covid are continuing to ease although the true tally is likely higher given how many people are testing at home where the data are not being collected the daily average for new cases stood at 87301 on sunday according to a new york times tracker down 8 from two weeks ago the daily average for hospitalizations was down 10 at 36347 while the daily average for deaths is up 7 to 492 globally the confirmed case tally rose above 6056 million on tuesday according to data aggregated by johns hopkins while the death toll is above 650 million with the us leading the world with 948 million cases and 1047563 deaths