Disagreement over offsets for an additional $15.6 billion in COVID-19 funding forced the supplemental pandemic funds recently requested by the White House to be cut from the fiscal 2022 spending bill, so the U.S. House would have the votes to pass the $1.5 trillion omnibus spending package late March 9.

The Biden administration sees the $15.6 billion just provided by Congress as inadequate funding for the pandemic, particularly given the administration’s new test-to-treat initiative, and will continue to press Congress for the remaining $6.9 billion requested by the White House, said Tom Inglesby, senior advisor for the White House COVID response team, at the American Clinical Laboratory Association annual meeting.

Sense Biodetection Ltd. is preparing to launch a new rapid, disposable, point-of-care molecular diagnostic test for COVID-19 in Europe after securing CE marking for the platform. The company will make its Veros COVID-19 test available in Ireland, Benelux and Nordic countries this quarter before expanding to other European markets.

An analysis of brain scans of participants in the UK Biobank has shown there are significant differences between the condition of the brain before and after mild COVID-19 infection. These included a reduction in overall brain size, reduction in grey matter thickness in the orbitofrontal cortex and hippocampal gyrus, and changes in markers of tissue damage in regions functionally connected to the primary olfactory cortex. Infected participants also showed, on average, a larger cognitive decline than participants who had not contracted COVID-19.