President Joe Biden signed a bill on Monday that officially ended the COVID-19 national emergency a month earlier than planned and roughly three years after the start of the pandemic.
The Biden administration previously announced plans to extend both the COVID-19 national emergency and public health emergency until May 11. But House Republicans rejected the extension and introduced legislation to end both immediately. The bill to end the national emergency was passed by the Senate at the end of March, with nearly two dozen Democrats supporting the legislation.
BIDEN’S FINAL PANDEMIC FLIP-FLOP IS TO END IT
“House Republicans are keeping our Commitment to America,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) tweeted earlier Monday, with a checklist that included ending the national emergency and revoking a military COVID-19 vaccination mandate.
The law Biden signed on Monday only ends the Trump-era national emergency, but the public health emergency will still expire in May if it is not extended again. Biden previously expressed his opposition to ending the emergency early, claiming it would be “a grave disservice to the American people,” but he said he would not veto the bill if it were passed.
The Biden administration additionally said that an abrupt end to the emergency declarations would “create wide-ranging chaos and uncertainty throughout the health care system,” according to Politico. But the administration has been winding down some of its emergency programs more quickly over the past few months, ahead of the Senate vote.
Among the more immediate programs to be affected is the mortgage forbearance from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, as well as relaxed Veteran Affairs Department requirements for home visits to evaluate eligibility for caregiver assistance.
The end of the public health emergency next month is expected to have a bigger impact on policies, such as ending the Trump-era immigration program Title 42. Ending Title 42 suddenly could “allow thousands of migrants per day into the country immediately without the necessary policies in place,” the White House warned.
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Then-President Donald Trump first declared a national emergency from the virus on March 13, 2020, that was retroactive to March 1. The declaration allowed for federal funding to be designated to cities and states for testing for the virus and for vaccination centers.
House Republicans have launched a probe investigating the origins of the pandemic. Federal officials are torn on how the pandemic started, but the most popular theory is that it originated from a lab leak in Wuhan, China.
