WASHINGTON — After more than three years and 1. 1 million deaths, the United States will end the COVID-19 public health emergency on Thursday, as Congress seeks to better prepare for a possible resurgence of this or that virus.
The expiration of the designation, initially set in January 2020, means adjustments to how vaccines, tests and remedies are purchased and administered, though not all adjustments take effect immediately. Less data will be obtained from the federal government on the frequency of the disease.
The timing of the emergency designation marks the end of the pandemic, although COVID-19 remains active and will likely continue to evolve into new variants in the months and years to come.
Rebecca Fischer, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Texas A
“What we learned is that the unpredictable nature of COVID is something we can rely on,” Fischer said.
The status update, he said, will allow officials to reverse what they learned about the pandemic as they prepare for a future in which something similar could happen.
“The end of the public fitness emergency declaration makes it vital to take inventory of where we are with the resources, infrastructure, workforce and education so we can push those areas forward. “”So when something unpredictable happens, like the emergence of a variant or a more severe disease, we’ll be more prepared to meet those challenges. “
Cases and deaths from the virus continue to decline, each week there are approximately 80,000 new diagnoses and more than 1,100 deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Vaccination rates continued to decline as the pandemic progressed, with less than 17% of others receiving the updated bivalent booster, compared to only 70% of Americans who received their original two-dose vaccines.
Federal public fitness officials say that long after the public fitness emergency ends, vaccines will continue to be available for free through personal insurance, Medicare and Medicaid.
The Department of Health and Human Services wrote in a fact sheet on ending the public fitness emergency that “as this transition to the classic fitness care market occurs, to families, the administration has facilitated access to dead-end COVID-19 vaccines for nearly all Americans and we will continue to ensure that effective COVID-19 treatments, like Paxlovid, are widely accessible.
Other uninsured people will continue to receive the vaccine after the country is discharged from the emergency through the so-called bridge program, according to HHS.
Treatments for COVID-19, such as Paxlovid and Lagevrio, may charge more, depending on health insurance status. Medicaid patients will continue to have remedies until September 30, 2024, without having to pay.
Access to loose tests for COVID-19, either through a lab or immediate at-home testing, will change, though HHS says the government maintains an inventory and will ship loose tests to others until the end of May COVIDtests. gov.
“The requirement that personal insurance corporations cover COVID-19 testing on a no-cost-sharing basis, whether for lab or over-the-counter testing, will end when PHE expires,” the fact sheet says. “However, the canopy can continue if it is planned to do so. “. Management encourages personal insurers to continue to provide this type of coverage in the future.
CDC will lose information on the percentage of COVID-19 infections with the end of the public fitness emergency.
The company will no longer require labs to report the number of negative tests, and reports of hospitalizations due to the virus will pile up from daily to weekly.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky testified before Congress earlier this month that the end of the public fitness emergency “means the CDC will no longer be able to collect information and percentage data that many Americans expect. “
“We’ll handle it, but that’s what we’re all worried about, basically because of what it says about the visibility we’ll have in the next outbreak,” Walensky said. “We will be back to square one, we will have to build and negotiate surveillance capacity while fighting a pathogen. “
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, he noted, it took the CDC about six months to “negotiate knowledge use agreements to gain knowledge about hospitalization. “
During that hearing in the U. S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. In the US, President Bernie Sanders highlighted the likelihood of a public health emergency.
Sanders, a Vermont independent, will be at the forefront of that work as Congress seeks to reauthorize the pandemic and the All Hazards Preparedness Act this year.
“What scientists are telling us is that there is a moderate chance of a pandemic as fatal as COVID-19 occurring in 10 years,” Sanders said. “We all hope that doesn’t happen, but our task is to make sure we’re in a position if it happens. “
Fischer, of Los Angeles Texas A
“We now know a lot about breath overflow, which can very well be repeated and how it plays out,” Fischer said, adding that public fitness officials can use this data to prepare for the next public fitness emergency.
“The next thing may also simply be a hurricane,” he said, noting that herbal bugs also bring infectious diseases.
Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, the most sensible Republican on the HELP committee, said at the hearing that the Pandemic Preparedness and All Hazards Act, or PAHPA, “was first enacted in 2006 largely to address the messes of the federal government. “reaction after Katrina. ” Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 devastated the Gulf Coast states.
The law, Cassidy noted, established the Strategic Preparedness and Response Administration, or ASPR, as the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA.
Congress reauthorized the law in 2013 and 2019 and is tasked with doing so this year, in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“As we saw the COVID-19 response, the PAHPA framework is far from perfect,” Cassidy said. “Mismanagement and maintenance of the strategic national stockpile forced doctors and nurses to use expired PPE. “
“An I symbol is a massive amount of discarded masks right at the beginning of the pandemic, because they were two weeks away from expiring,” he added.
Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney and Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. Bob Casey will lead the effort with committee members, Cassidy said.
This reauthorization, he said, deserves the last one.
“We made mistakes, we learned some tough lessons, so let’s work together to make sure next time we don’t get on the fly,” Cassidy said. “On the contrary, there are systems that we can put in place, update the game manual and make sure that whatever we do, it is flexible enough to deal with threats beyond an undeniable pandemic. “
by Jennifer Shutt, Nebraska Examiner May 11, 2023
WASHINGTON — After more than three years and 1. 1 million deaths, the United States will end the COVID-19 public health emergency on Thursday, as Congress seeks to better prepare for a possible resurgence of this or that virus.
The expiration of the designation, initially set in January 2020, means adjustments to how vaccines, tests and remedies are purchased and administered, though not all adjustments take effect immediately. Less data will be obtained from the federal government on the frequency of the disease.
The timing of the emergency designation marks the end of the pandemic, although COVID-19 remains active and will likely continue to evolve into new variants in the months and years to come.
Rebecca Fischer, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Texas A
“What we learned is that the unpredictable nature of COVID is something we can rely on,” Fischer said.
The status update, he said, will allow officials to reverse what they learned about the pandemic as they prepare for a future in which something similar could happen.
“The end of the public fitness emergency declaration makes it vital to take inventory of where we are with the resources, infrastructure, workforce and education so we can push those areas forward. “”So when something unpredictable happens, like the emergence of a variant or a more severe disease, we’ll be more prepared to meet those challenges. “
Cases and deaths from the virus continue to decline, each week there are approximately 80,000 new diagnoses and more than 1,100 deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Vaccination rates continued to decline as the pandemic progressed, with less than 17% of others receiving the updated bivalent booster, compared to only 70% of Americans who received their original two-dose vaccines.
Federal public fitness officials say that long after the public fitness emergency ends, vaccines will continue to be available for free through personal insurance, Medicare and Medicaid.
The Department of Health and Human Services wrote in a fact sheet on ending the public fitness emergency that “as this transition to the classic fitness care market occurs, to families, the administration has facilitated access to dead-end COVID-19 vaccines for nearly all Americans and we will continue to ensure that effective COVID-19 treatments, like Paxlovid, are widely accessible.
Other uninsured people will continue to receive the vaccine after the country is discharged from the emergency through the so-called bridge program, according to HHS.
Treatments for COVID-19, such as Paxlovid and Lagevrio, may charge more, depending on health insurance status. Medicaid patients will continue to have remedies until September 30, 2024, without having to pay.
Access to loose tests for COVID-19, either through a lab or immediate at-home testing, will change, though HHS says the government maintains an inventory and will ship loose tests to others until the end of May COVIDtests. gov.
“The requirement that personal insurance corporations cover COVID-19 testing on a no-cost-sharing basis, whether for lab or over-the-counter testing, will end when PHE expires,” the fact sheet says. “However, the canopy can continue if it is planned to do so. “. Management encourages personal insurers to continue to provide this type of coverage in the future.
CDC will lose information on the percentage of COVID-19 infections with the end of the public fitness emergency.
The company will no longer require labs to report the number of negative tests, and reports of hospitalizations due to the virus will pile up from daily to weekly.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky testified before Congress earlier this month that the end of the public fitness emergency “means the CDC will no longer be able to collect information and percentage data that many Americans expect. “
“We’ll handle it, but that’s what we’re all worried about, basically because of what it says about the visibility we’ll have in the next outbreak,” Walensky said. “We will be back to square one, we will have to build and negotiate surveillance capacity while fighting a pathogen. “
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, he noted, it took the CDC about six months to “negotiate knowledge use agreements to gain knowledge about hospitalization. “
During that hearing in the U. S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. In the US, President Bernie Sanders highlighted the likelihood of a public health emergency.
Sanders, a Vermont independent, will be at the forefront of that work as Congress seeks to reauthorize the pandemic and the All Hazards Preparedness Act this year.
“What scientists are telling us is that there is a moderate chance of a pandemic as fatal as COVID-19 occurring in 10 years,” Sanders said. “We all hope that doesn’t happen, but our task is to make sure we’re in a position if it happens. “
Fischer, of Los Angeles Texas A
“We now know a lot about breath overflow, which can very well be repeated and how it plays out,” Fischer said, adding that public fitness officials can use this data to prepare for the next public fitness emergency.
“The next thing may also simply be a hurricane,” he said, noting that herbal bugs also bring infectious diseases.
Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, the most sensible Republican on the HELP committee, said at the hearing that the Pandemic Preparedness and All Hazards Act, or PAHPA, “was first enacted in 2006 largely to address the messes of the federal government. “reaction after Katrina. ” Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 devastated the Gulf Coast states.
The law, Cassidy noted, established the Strategic Preparedness and Response Administration, or ASPR, as the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA.
Congress reauthorized the law in 2013 and 2019 and is tasked with doing so this year, in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“As we saw the COVID-19 response, the PAHPA framework is far from perfect,” Cassidy said. “Mismanagement and maintenance of the strategic national stockpile forced doctors and nurses to use expired PPE. “
“An I symbol is a massive amount of discarded masks right at the beginning of the pandemic, because they were two weeks away from expiring,” he added.
Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney and Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. Bob Casey will lead the effort with committee members, Cassidy said.
This reauthorization, he said, deserves the last one.
“We made mistakes, we learned some tough lessons, so let’s work together to make sure next time we don’t get on the fly,” Cassidy said. “On the contrary, there are systems that we can put in place, update the game manual and make sure that whatever we do, it is flexible enough to deal with threats beyond an undeniable pandemic. “
Nebraska Examiner is a component of States Newsroom, a grant-backed news network and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nebraska Examiner maintains editorial independence. Contact editor Cate Folsom if you have questions: info@nebraskaexaminer. com. Follow the Nebraska examiner on Facebook and Twitter.
Jennifer covers the nation’s capital as a senior reporter for the state newsroom. His policy spaces include congressional politics, politics, and demanding legal situations with a focus on health care, unemployment, housing, and family assistance.
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