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On Monday, President Joe Biden declared an end to the Covid national health emergency, which had been in place for more than three years and had supported exceptional efforts to offer care in a nation where the disease had claimed more than a million lives.
The national emergency relating to the Covid-19 epidemic has been terminated, according to a bill signed by Biden and earlier approved by Congress, according to the White House.
This ends extravagant funding sources for free Covid testing, vaccines, and other emergency measures put in place starting in January 2020 to try to release the largest economy in the world from the grip of the global pandemic.
Less obvious is how the emergency will affect the already tense southern border with Mexico, where US authorities have long struggled to control the flow of illegal immigrants and significant numbers of asylum seekers.
During the declared health emergency, strong limitations on the admission of unauthorised immigrants were placed by means of a regulation known as Title 42. That is about to end, compelling the administration to find a new legal solution if it wants to prevent the potentially negative political effects of new influxes.
Title 42 “is expected to expire on May 11th,” a senior official in the White House told AFP.
The US is now officially abandoning the global pandemic, but the Biden administration is already working on a next-generation vaccine and other countermeasures to deal with any future variations of the virus, according to the White House.
The Covid-19 virus is a fast evolving pathogen, and there is a fund of at least $5 billion available to “help catalyse scientific advancement” and “stay ahead of it.”
