The White House will end a pair of COVID-19 emergency declarations on May 11, the latest signal that the administration is winding down its fight against the virus.
The national emergency and public health emergency will be extended to that date and then lifted at that time, the administration said Monday in a statement of policy on bills related to the measures.
The step is a milestone in a COVID-19 response that once dominated much of the early weeks of President Joe Biden’s administration.
The pandemic response has gradually shifted to the background, though the uptake of the latest booster shot remains modest. About 500 people are dying each day from COVID, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data show.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization said earlier on Monday that the global health emergency declaration remains in place. The decision by the United Nations agency was made after a meeting held by the COVID-19 emergency committee on Friday. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that he remains hopeful that the “world will transition to a new phase” in the coming year.
On Jan. 11, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services extended the COVID public health emergency once more, maintaining measures that have expanded access to health care for millions of Americans since the original declaration was made by the Trump administration in January of 2020.
The Department of Health and Human Services didn’t immediately respond to request for comment. The White House declined further comment.
The Biden administration has promised to give states 60 days notice before ending the public health emergency to allow sufficient time to prepare for changes to programs and regulatory authorities. The emergency declaration allowed millions of Americans special access to Medicaid, the state and federal program that provides health coverage to low-income populations, and also created flexible access to telehealth services.
The White House released the statement of administration policy in response to a pair of measures proposed by Republicans in the House of Representatives that aim to terminate the public health emergency and national emergency. The Biden administration said that it “strongly opposes” the enactment of the measures, and that its wind-down in May would provide more sufficient time for states to prepare for the changes.
The administration said it was providing advance notice as “an abrupt end to the emergency declarations would create wide-ranging chaos and uncertainty throughout the health care system.”
The public health emergency declaration has allowed Medicaid to provide states with additional funding to ensure vulnerable Americans don’t abruptly lose access to their coverage. Kaiser Family Foundation estimates between 5 million and 14 million people could lose Medicaid coverage when a provision under the declaration that allowed for continuous enrollment comes to an end. As result of the end of the declaration, state spending on Medicaid is likely to increase.
Republican lawmakers have long demanded the Biden administration end the public health emergency, criticizing it as a heavy-handed form of government intervention. Health policy experts supporting the designation argued that the health department must ensure protections for vulnerable people before unwinding the emergency designation, especially during the winter, when the risk of COVID transmission rises and burdens the health system.
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