IV 
117TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. CON. RES. 60 
Expressing the sense of Congress that the United States Government must 
take steps to end the pandemic now. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
NOVEMBER 9, 2021 
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY (for herself, Mr. BLUMENAUER, Ms. DELAURO, Mr. DOG-
GETT, Mr. CASTRO of Texas, Mr. ESPAILLAT, Mr. GARCI´A of Illinois, Ms. 
LEE
of California, Ms. JACOBS
of California, Mr. KHANNA, Mr. 
KRISHNAMOORTHI, Mr. POCAN, and Ms. PRESSLEY) submitted the fol-
lowing concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on 
Foreign Affairs, and in addition to the Committees on Ways and Means, 
the Judiciary, and Financial Services, for a period to be subsequently de-
termined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions 
as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned 
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 
Expressing the sense of Congress that the United States 
Government must take steps to end the pandemic now. 
Whereas the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID–19 
pandemic call for extraordinary measures by world lead-
ers who must choose to end the pandemic and act accord-
ingly; 
Whereas the Delta variant that was first detected in India 
and increased COVID–19 deaths worldwide, making chil-
dren dangerously ill and reversing progress in containing 
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COVID–19, shows why ‘‘no one is safe until everyone is 
safe’’; 
Whereas the mismatch between the crisis faced and failure to 
date to deliver on the concrete actions needed to end the 
pandemic is disastrous and unacceptable; 
Whereas new variants may prolong the COVID–19 crisis, and 
the next variant could be the mutation that makes 
COVID–19 vaccines ineffective and causes untold harm 
and suffering; 
Whereas the only way to end the pandemic and safeguard 
Americans’ health and economic security is for the 
United States Government to deliver on President 
Biden’s pledge to save lives worldwide by leading the 
global COVID–19 vaccination effort, including by specifi-
cally achieving the President’s goal of 70 percent global 
COVID–19 vaccination by the United Nations General 
Assembly in September 2022; 
Whereas less than 8 percent of the entire population of the 
African continent is vaccinated against COVID–19, and 
most African nations are not projected to reach 10 per-
cent COVID–19 vaccination in 2021; 
Whereas less than 5 percent of people in developing countries 
have received at least 1 dose, and many in developing na-
tions will not have access to COVID–19 vaccination until 
2023 absent significant increases in COVID–19 vaccine 
production and distribution; 
Whereas absent a major increase in global production and 
supply of COVID–19 vaccines, treatments, diagnostic 
tests, and other COVID–19-related medical supplies, the 
pandemic will rage largely unmitigated among a signifi-
cant share of the world’s population, resulting in further 
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mutation of the virus and increased hospitalizations and 
deaths; 
Whereas COVID–19 has killed 1 out of 500 Americans, and 
the Delta variant elevated the global daily death tolls to 
10,000 people daily; 
Whereas COVID–19 is estimated to cause the United States 
$16,000,000,000,000 in economic losses, accompanied by 
global losses that have impoverished hundreds of millions 
of people worldwide; 
Whereas producing and delivering many more doses of an ef-
fective COVID–19 vaccine is the only path to eradicate 
this virus and end the pandemic everywhere; 
Whereas rich countries have yet to ‘‘donate’’ adequate 
amounts of COVID–19 vaccines to low- and middle-in-
come countries, as less than 15 percent of the 
1,970,000,000 doses pledged have actually been delivered; 
Whereas an estimated 11,000,000,000 COVID–19 vaccines 
were needed to vaccinate 70 percent of the world’s adults, 
and demand has since increased with some nations initi-
ating booster programs and child COVID–19 vaccination 
plans; 
Whereas a major cause of the shortage is monopoly control 
of how much and where COVID–19 vaccines are made by 
a handful of pharmaceutical corporations that have con-
solidated their control using intellectual property bar-
riers; 
Whereas voluntary licensing arrangements have not fixed this 
problem given the handful of pharmaceutical corporations 
that are using intellectual property monopolies to limit 
production and supply, and have refused to negotiate 
payment terms with qualified manufacturers in Africa, 
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Latin America, and Asia creating production bottlenecks 
and thwarting production of COVID–19 vaccine doses 
around the world; 
Whereas COVID–19 vaccine monopoly firms are focused not 
on global access, but on profitable markets, as dem-
onstrated by current producers prioritizing delivery of 
booster doses sold at increased prices in wealthy coun-
tries while most of the world’s population remains 
unvaccinated against COVID–19; 
Whereas the COVAX initiative aims to only vaccinate 20 per-
cent of the population against COVID–19 in developing 
nations by the end of 2021, and is unable to get enough 
supply to meet this modest goal; 
Whereas people around the globe cheered when President 
Biden announced United States support for the tem-
porary waiver of some World Trade Organization (WTO) 
Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual 
Property Rights (TRIPS) rules; 
Whereas in response to the Biden-Harris administration an-
nouncing support for a temporary COVID–19 emergency 
waiver of WTO intellectual property barriers, now more 
than 130 nations support a waiver of WTO intellectual 
property monopolies for pharmaceutical corporations; 
Whereas Germany had pushed the European Union to oppose 
a temporary WTO waiver, and joined only by the United 
Kingdom and Switzerland, the 3 WTO members are 
blocking the rest of the world’s nations that seek to end 
a few pharmaceutical corporations’ monopoly control of 
COVID–19 medicines; 
Whereas there has been no progress made in agreeing to a 
final WTO TRIPS waiver text since the waiver was ini-
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tially proposed on October 2, 2020, and every week a 
waiver is not agreed to prolongs the pandemic; 
Whereas breaking monopoly control over production not only 
means more COVID–19 vaccines, but it also will resolve 
COVID–19 vaccine supply chain shortfalls; 
Whereas affordable access can be quickly scaled up for the 
new antiviral COVID–19 treatments that dramatically re-
duce death and serious illness given that, as small mol-
ecule drugs, they can be speedily produced by manufac-
turers and distributed through networks already func-
tioning for HIV/AIDS medicines if intellectual property 
barriers are eliminated through enactment of a TRIPS 
waiver; 
Whereas to most quickly translate enactment of a temporary 
COVID–19 emergency TRIPS waiver into more COVID– 
19 vaccine shots in arms, more diagnostic tests detecting 
outbreaks and variants, and more treatments to help save 
lives, the United States must work with South Africa and 
other nations supporting a waiver to conclude a final text 
so a waiver can be enacted; 
Whereas to most quickly translate the lifting of TRIPS-im-
posed intellectual property barriers into billions of 
COVID–19 vaccine shots in arms, the United States 
must leverage the public investment in research, develop-
ment, and prepurchase of COVID–19 vaccines and exer-
cise its existing rights and authorities to require the 
COVID–19 vaccine monopoly firms to share recipes via 
speedy technology transfer; 
Whereas investments in international COVID–19 vaccine 
manufacturing hubs and infrastructure promote United 
States health security, economic recovery, and national 
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security, and protect Americans from this pandemic and 
better prepare the United States for future pandemics; 
Whereas keeping Americans safe from COVID–19 and revi-
talizing the American economy to build back better rely 
on people worldwide having access to COVID–19 vac-
cines, diagnostic tests, therapeutics, and treatments as 
quickly as possible; and 
Whereas a temporary TRIPS waiver does not threaten giving 
United States mRNA technology to China and Russia be-
cause such research has already been conducted by sci-
entists around the world for decades, and the patents on 
the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID–19 vaccine are licensed to 
the Chinese firm Fosun Pharma to manufacture that 
COVID–19 vaccine for sale in China: Now, therefore, be 
it 
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate 
concurring), That it is the sense of Congress that to en-
sure the speediest end of the COVID–19 pandemic— 
(1) United States and European governments 
should unite to enact a World Trade Organization 
(WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of In-
tellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) waiver, require 
technology transfer, and otherwise facilitate access 
in low- and middle-income countries to high-quality 
COVID–19 mRNA vaccines; 
(2) vital United States partners, with shared 
values who also prioritize global cooperation and sav-
ing lives and livelihoods worldwide, should unite to 
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remove all obstacles to global access to COVID–19 
vaccines, diagnostics, treatments, oxygen, and other 
medical products to advance the common goal of 
quickly ending the COVID–19 pandemic; 
(3) the United States Government should play 
its indispensable leadership role to work with South 
Africa and other nations to quickly finalize a WTO 
TRIPS waiver, overcome the opposition now block-
ing the 130 nations that support a waiver, and se-
cure swift adoption of a temporary COVID–19 waiv-
er of the patent, copyright, industrial design, and 
undisclosed data provisions of the WTO TRIPS 
Agreement with respect to COVID–19 vaccines, 
treatments, diagnostic tests, and other medical prod-
ucts to prevent, contain, or treat COVID–19 and the 
inputs and equipment to make such medical prod-
ucts, so that WTO rules no longer thwart others 
countries’ wider production of COVID–19 medicines; 
(4) the United States Government should lever-
age its massive taxpayer investments in COVID–19 
vaccine development and use existing legal authori-
ties under the Defense Production Act, Bayh-Dole 
Act, and section 1498 of title 28, United States 
Code, to compel COVID–19 vaccine makers to share 
the COVID–19 vaccine recipe with willing, qualified 
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companies around the world for a fair royalty fee so 
more doses can be made as quickly as possible; 
(5) the United States Government should 
launch and help fund a global manufacturing plan to 
increase and democratize COVID–19 vaccine pro-
duction in regional hubs around the world to 
produce 8,000,000,000 more COVID–19 vaccine 
doses by repurposing existing facilities and building 
new capacity, including by allocating funds to capital 
expenditures to establish additional COVID–19 
mRNA vaccine manufacturing lines and providing 
funding for raw materials, technology transfer, and 
royalty costs to scale up production and shave years 
from the global pandemic; and 
(6) the United States Government has an obli-
gation to the American people, whose taxpayer funds 
helped to develop these lifesaving COVID–19 vac-
cines, to ensure that doses are ultimately delivered 
to those most in need around the world so as to en-
sure the global COVID–19 vaccination that is nec-
essary to end the pandemic. 
Æ 
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