COVID battle winds down
Life-saving pandemic programs set to end as COVID emergency order expires
After three years and more than 1 million American deaths, the public health emergency related to COVID-19 will formally end on Thursday. It comes a few days after the World Health Organization announced an end to the “emergency” phase of the threeyear COVID-19 pandemic.
This is undoubtedly an important milestone, reflecting the country’s progress in fighting the disease, the population’s vaccination numbers and the comparatively low number of hospitalization and deaths. But the nation shouldn’t lose sight of those still at greater risk from a coronavirus infection, who face a treacherous path in the absence of the programs and protections established under those expiring emergency powers.
In early 2020, when the first wave of coronavirus crashed against American shores, public health officials scrambled to pull together the tools to effectively combat the disease. The declaration of both a national emergency and a public health emergency were instrumental in those efforts, granting Washington the power to act swiftly and forcefully to provide the necessary care and resources to fight an insidious enemy.
Those declarations enabled such achievements as the rapid development and deployment of COVID-19 vaccines and providing free coronavirus tests to households free of charge. Unquestionably, those programs and initiatives saved American lives.
Though different studies draw different conclusions, the scientific consensus is that the vaccines alone prevented millions from hospitalization and perhaps 3 million deaths — and they were available free of charge. They allowed society to reopen and for the economy to ramp up once again.
The United States is still recording about a thousand COVID-19 deaths a week. While that is the lowest number in years, it is not an accurate picture of the situation since many of the data collection and reporting standards have been abandoned.
That aspect is concerning. As dashboards are discontinued and reporting becomes less accurate and reliable, it leaves those concerned about infection with less information about how best to protect themselves. That’s especially worrisome for Americans who are immunocompromised or who have chronic illness as well as our seniors, who are at greater risk of hospitalization and death.
Those populations have benefited greatly from timely reporting about community spread and infection waves, but also from the programs established under the public health emergency, such as expanded Medicaid and Medicare coverage and free test kits from the federal government. They face an uncertain future.
Already states are tightening eligibility requirements, which the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates will see between 5 million and 14 million people pushed out of Medicaid. That means more people without health coverage should new variants or another wave of infection take hold.
Washington will end its program of offering four free test kits to every household on Thursday; those who haven’t claimed their tests since Dec. 22 can do so at covid.gov/tests.
Private insurance programs are also expected to change how they approach COVID-related costs, meaning individuals will have to pay for test kits and will likely have to pay for vaccines and boosters, and for antiviral medications such as Paxlovid, which help mitigate the symptoms of infection.
Then there is the question of “long COVID,” a catch-all term for those who suffer continued symptoms for months or longer after an infection. Research continues into this mysterious aspect of the coronavirus and how to best treat the afflicted. Hanging over that population is the question of whether long COVID should qualify as a long-term disability and what benefits those suffering should receive.
Addressing many of these issues — how to protect the most vulnerable, how to keep vaccines affordable, how to handle long COVID — will be left to Congress, which likely means they won’t be addressed at all. The legislative branch seems incapable of paying the nation’s bills, much less finding agreement on these tricky topics.
But they may be forced to. The nation is about to plunge into the unknown and while we should hope for the best, officials should be ready to act should circumstances again demand it.