The Biden Administration Ends COVID-19 National Public Health Emergencies

The Biden administration announced it will end the COVID-19 national and public health emergencies on May 11, 2023. The White House announced its plan in a statement responding to two House Republican measures aimed at immediately ending the emergencies.  Congress has already extended some provisions originally tied to the emergency, including expanded Medicare and high-deductible health plan telehealth access and hospital-at-home care.  Ending the emergencies will restructure the federal government’s coronavirus response and shift the responsibility for the distribution of most vaccines and treatments to the private market. The Administration’s announcement came the same day the WHO announced that the global health emergency posed by COVID-19 is not over, saying the number of deaths, low vaccination rates and the threat of emerging variants still pose a significant threat to human health. Last week, an average of 536 people died in the U.S. per day from the virus.