Global Courant 2023-04-11 06:23:24
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. national emergency to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic ended Monday as President Joe Biden signed a bipartisan congressional resolution to end it after three years — weeks before it was due to expire in addition to a separate public health emergency.
The national emergency has allowed the government to take drastic measures to respond to the virus and support the country’s economic, health and welfare systems. Some of the emergency measures have already been successfully phased out, others are still being phased out. The public health emergency — which underpins strict immigration restrictions on the U.S.-Mexico border — ends on May 11.
The White House issued a one-line statement on Monday saying Biden had signed the measure behind closed doors, after publicly opposing the resolution, but not so much as to veto it. More than 197 House Democrats voted against it when the GOP-controlled chamber passed it in February. Last month, when the measure passed the Senate by a vote of 68 to 23, Biden informed lawmakers he would sign it.
The administration said once it became clear that Congress was moving toward expediting the end of the national emergency, it worked to expedite the agencies’ preparations for a return to normal procedures. Among the changes: The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s COVID-19 mortgage tolerance program expires at the end of May, and the Department of Veterans Affairs is now returning to requiring home visits to determine your eligibility for caretaker assistance.
Lawmakers last year extended the telehealth flexibility introduced when COVID-19 hit for another two years, allowing healthcare systems across the country to regularly deliver care by smartphone or computer.
More than 1.13 million people in the U.S. have died from COVID-19 in the past three years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including 1,773 people in the week ending April 5.
Then-President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar first declared a public health emergency on January 31, 2020, and Trump declared the COVID-19 pandemic a national emergency in March. emergency. Emergency powers have been repeatedly extended by Biden since he took office in January 2021, and he expanded the use of emergency powers after entering the White House.
