Democrat lawmakers have been pressuring Biden to do more in order to contain COVID-19; Democratic representatives Elissa Slotkin and Tim Ryan are urging Joe Biden to buy and distribute KN95 masks to all households requesting them. 

The proposal is that the masks will be paid for by previously set funds allocated to combatting COVID-19. 

"We strongly encourage the administration to take the opportunity to prevent further loss of life ... by leveraging the federal government's substantial authority to prioritize American-made masks and PPE," Slotkin and Ryan write in a letter to Axios. 

The United States has recently surpassed over a million cases per day, reflecting the faults in the health system: The lack of readily available rapid testing, especially before the holidays that passed, is one issue that many aides and members strongly addressed.

40 members' dissatisfaction

Over 40 members of the US House and Senate lodged in a letter to Biden on Monday, requesting his administration to expand COVID-19 rapid testing. 

In terms of testing supplies and equipment, press secretary for the White House Jen Psaki said that the administration was “not where we needed to be.”

Democratic Representative Cori Bush, on Christmas Eve, tweeted “Every single person in this country should receive free, at-home, rapid testing and high-quality N95/KN95 masks. No matter your insurance status. No matter your income level. No matter where you live."

Every single person in this country should receive free, at-home, rapid testing and high quality N95/KN95 masks.

No matter your insurance status.
No matter your income level.
No matter where you live.

— Congresswoman Cori Bush (@RepCori) January 11, 2022

Representative Katie Porter retweeted a tweet from Joe DePete, president of the Air Line Pilots Association who criticized the CDC for cutting down quarantine time for those who've tested positive for COVID-19 from 10 days to 5.

He argued pilots shouldn’t feel pressured to fly unless they are medically fit to do so, saying the ALPA “will not allow corporate interests to replace the good judgment pilots show daily in making decisions about whether they are healthy to fly.”

No pilot should feel pressured to fly before they are medically fit to do so. Period. We've followed the science throughout the pandemic & will not allow corporate interests to replace the good judgment pilots show daily in making decisions about whether they are healthy to fly. https://t.co/EtK5DLhNDj

— Capt. Joe DePete (@ALPAPresident) December 30, 2021

Will McKelvey, a former health policy advisor to Ro Khanna, called the CDC for not requiring a negative rapid test after the new 5-day quarantine period “disappointing, but predictable due to the shortage of rapid tests," adding “This shortage could have been avoided by focusing on approving and distributing inexpensive paper-strip tests, like more than a dozen Congress-members pushed for in 2020.”