While the U.S. public health emergency (PHE) declaration has come to an end, COVID-19 is not over, and there will be changes that affect Americans.

Article by Isabel Cantor, Associate Medical Reporter

WASHINGTON - After years of COVID-19 infections, restrictions and hardships throughout the world, the U.S. is no longer in a Public Health Emergency (PHE). On May 11th, 2023, President Biden officially declared the end of the PHE from the virus, after the Biden Administration announced the preliminary news on January 30.

The early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic came with the declaration of a PHE in January 2020 under President Trump. While there were many hardships felt throughout the world as a result of the pandemic, officially declaring a PHE in the U.S. was very beneficial to Americans, as it granted the federal government the funding and supplies to make COVID tests, treatments, healthcare, vaccines, masks and more resources accessible to Americans, being especially beneficial to those who are low-income.

“They helped a lot of people to get services. Now we’re going back to a health care approach to health care, and that brings all of the weaknesses of our system into play,” says Dr. Josh Sharfstein, the vice dean for public health practice and community engagement at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

“The federal emergency declarations back in 2020 affected all of us,” pulmonologist Dr. Raed Dweik, “but we may have not known what they really meant.” Now that there is no longer a PHE, it is vital to be aware of what will remain the same, and what will be changing.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a fact sheet containing important information regarding this change. According to them, vaccines, access to COVID-19 treatments such as Paxlovid and Lagevrio, major telehealth facilities, the whole-of-government response to long-term effects of COVID (Long COVID), and the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) Emergency Use Authorizations (EUAs) for COVID-19 products, will generally not be affected. This does not mean that access to the same resources will continue as they had, but overall, this should not be a problem.

However, there will be changes caused by the PHE’s termination. Some Medicare and Medicaid waivers will no longer be accepted by healthcare providers, COVID-19 surveillance will be reduced from daily to weekly reports and more.

In addition to this, it is very important to know that the COVID-19 pandemic is not over. The risk of getting infected with COVID-19 still exists, and the stakes are essentially worse than they were at the start of the pandemic. On the bright side, however, cases are declining, so the risk of infection is lower, especially that summer is approaching, but the best thing to do is to take the proper precautions.