On Monday, the Biden administration announced its plan to end the COVID-19 national and public health emergency declarations on May 11 after one final extension.
The announcement comes in response to two bills in Congress that would force the end of the declarations.
“The COVID-19 national emergency and public health emergency (PHE) were declared by the Trump Administration in 2020,” the White House said in a statement. “They are currently set to expire on March 1 and April 11, respectively. At present, the Administration’s plan is to extend the emergency declarations to May 11, and then end both emergencies on that date. This wind-down would align with the Administration’s previous commitments to give at least 60 days’ notice prior to termination of the PHE.”
“To be clear, continuation of these emergency declarations until May 11 does not impose any restriction at all on individual conduct with regard to COVID-19. They do not impose mask mandates or vaccine mandates. They do not restrict school or business operations. They do not require the use of any medicines or tests in response to cases of COVID-19,” the statement added.
The Biden administration went on to attack the two pieces of legislation introduced by House Republicans that would forcefully end the declarations. The first, H.R. 382, a.k.a. the ‘‘Pandemic is Over Act,” was introduced by Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY), and it would terminate the public health emergency. The second, H.J.R. 7, was authored by Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), and it would terminate the national health emergency.
The statement claimed that the bills would “create wide-ranging chaos and uncertainty throughout the health care system” by threatening Medicare funding by abruptly ending provisions previously enacted by Congress.
Secondly, the Biden administration said it opposed the legislation because the end of the public health emergency would end Title 42. Oddly, the Biden administration is still attempting to end Title 42, which expedites the rate border agents can turn away migrants. The White House admitted this in the statement.
“While the Administration has attempted to terminate the Title 42 policy and continues to support an orderly lifting of those restrictions, Title 42 remains in place because of orders issued by the Supreme Court and a district court in Louisiana. Enactment of H.R. 382 would lift Title 42 immediately, and result in a substantial additional inflow of migrants at the Southwest border,” the statement said.
“The Administration strongly opposes enactment of H.R. 382 and H.J. Res. 7, which would be a grave disservice to the American people,” the statement concluded.