From Hospitals in COVID-19 hotspots to receive $10 billion more in federal aid. The report is dated July 20, 2020.

The new round will pay $50,000 per COVID-19 admission, compared with $77,000 in the earlier high-impact round.

A senior HHS official said on a media call that the reduced funding is due to the number of such admissions surging from about 50,000 in the first round to more than 400,000 by the time of the second round.

Covid has been a financial bonanza for hospitals across the US.

And this from April 2021, from the Washington Post even: “A year after passage of Cares Act, watchdogs struggle to oversee trillions in coronavirus spending”.

When the $2.1 trillion Cares Act was enacted just over a year ago, Democrats in Congress, mistrustful of the Trump administration’s ethical track record, made robust policing a top priority for the gusher of new spending.

The law, intended to stem the economic pain caused by the coronavirus pandemic, created new oversight bodies and directed more than $270 million to new and existing watchdogs. A House subcommittee with the power to issue subpoenas quickly got to work with queries to private corporations and government agencies.

One year later, the conversation in Washington over how to oversee a new, nearly $2 trillion relief package administered by the Biden administration is decidedly more muted. The latest legislation, called the American Rescue Plan, created no new oversight bodies, although it appropriated more than $200 million in new funding for existing ones.

To date, more than $5 trillion in government spending has been appropriated to respond to the pandemic and ensuing economic calamity. Yet, over the past year, oversight from three separate watchdog entities has been either undermined by partisan disagreements, slowed by bureaucratic hurdles or constrained by funding, according to interviews with those tasked with carrying out oversight, outside experts and advocates. One of the watchdogs created by the Cares Act has yet to receive a chair, hampering its work. Another watchdog faces budget constraints with just three dozen full-time staff so far.

Oversight or not, you may be sure the money has flowed everywhere. Under Trump, the amounts allocated were an already astonishing $10 billion. This time it is more than $5 trillion! With virtually no oversight, just flowing everywhere with not a moment of accountability anywhere to be seen.