Joe Biden ends US Covid-19 emergency status
- The move concludes over 3 years of lavish funding for coronavirus tests, free vaccines and other pandemic measures
- Despite the end of the emergency, the Biden administration is working on a next-generation vaccine and other measures to combat any future variant of the virus
President Joe Biden on Monday officially ended the US Covid-19 national health emergency that for more than three years underpinned extraordinary efforts to provide care for a country where more than a million people died from the disease.
The White House said Biden signed a law passed earlier by Congress “which terminates the national emergency related to the Covid-19 pandemic”.
This closes lavish funding streams for Covid tests, free vaccines and other emergency measures thrown together – starting in January 2020 – to try and free the world’s biggest economy from the grip of the global pandemic.
Less clear is the impact the end of the emergency will have on the already tense southern border with Mexico, where US authorities have long struggled to manage the flow of undocumented immigrants and large numbers of asylum seekers.
A rule known as Title 42 was used during the official health emergency to impose stringent restrictions on acceptance of undocumented arrivals.
That is set to end, forcing the administration to adopt a different legal mechanism if it wants to avoid the politically damaging potential of new influxes.
A senior official in the White House said that the use of Title 42 “is expected to expire on May 11”.
