President Biden will put an end to the Covid emergency in May, as reported by the New York Times:
The Biden administration plans to let the coronavirus public health emergency expire in May, the White House said on Monday, a sign that federal officials believe the pandemic has moved into a new, less dire phase.
The White House wants to keep the emergency in place for several more months so hospitals, health providers and health officials can prepare for a host of changes that will come when it ends, officials said. Millions of Americans have received free Covid tests, treatments and vaccines during the pandemic, and not all of that will continue to be free once the emergency is declared over.
An average of more than 500 Americans are still dying daily from Covid. But at the three-year mark, the coronavirus is no longer upending everyday life to the extent it once did, partly because much of the population has at least some protection against the virus from vaccinations and prior infections.
Still, the White House said on Monday that the nation needed an orderly transition out of the public health emergency. The administration said it also intended to allow a separate declaration of a national emergency to expire in May.
The Biden administration in January continued its Covid emergency until at least April via the Transportation and Security Administration requirement that all non-citizen travelers to the United States be “fully vaccinated” for the virus.
“On October 25, 2021, the President issued a proclamation, Advancing the Safe Resumption of Global Travel During the COVID-19 Pandemic, to move away from the country-by-country restrictions previously applied during the still ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and to adopt an air travel policy that relies primarily on vaccination as an added tool to the current multi-layered strategy to advance the safe resumption of international air travel to the United States,” the order read.
“The Proclamation rescinds the previous proclamations for COVID-19 related travel restrictions and governs the entry into the United States of noncitizen nonimmigrants traveling to the United States by air,” it added.
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