Federal health officials said on Tuesday that they are withdrawing $ 11.4 billion in Covid-19 funds For government and local public health departments and other health organizations throughout the country.
The US Department of Health and Humanitarian Services said in a statement: “The Covid-19 pandemic has ended, and HHS will not be lost billions of dollars from taxpayers who respond to a vase that is not present by the Americans for years.”
The statement saidDisease control and prevention centersIt is expected that the money starts after 30 days of termination notifications, which began to be sent on Monday.
Officials said the funds were largely used to test Covid-19, vaccination and global projects as well as community health workers who respond to COVID and a program established in 2021 to address Covid health variations between patients at risk and deprived, including minority population. This step was first reported by NBC News.
Lori Freeman, CEO of the National Association of Health and City officials, said that much funding was to end soon. She said, “It has ended in the next six months.” “There is no reason – why is it eliminated now? It is just a harsh and unusual behavior.”
In a relevant step, more than twenty research grants related to Covid funded by the National Health InstitutesIt has been canceled. Earlier this month, the Trump administration closed the request fromCovidtest.govThe site that the Americans can perform Covid-19 tests that are delivered to their mail boxes without any fees.
Despite the end of the state of federal public health, the virus is still killing Americans: 458 people have died a week on average of Covid over the past four weeks,According to CDC data.
HHS will not provide many details on how the federal government expects to recover money from what he called “affected beneficiaries”. But HHS Andrew Nixon spokesman said in an email: “11.4 billion dollars is unexpected.”
Freiman said that her understanding is that the state’s health departments had already had Kofid’s money.
She said, “The financing was declared by Congress, and it was allocated by Congress, and was essentially outside the door, in the hands of donors,” she says, which decides how to distribute it locally.
Freeman added that some Covid funds are used to address other public health issues. For example, monitoring of wastewater that started during Covid became important to discover other diseases as well.
“It has been used in important ways to track influenza, patterns of new diseases and emerging diseases – and even recently withThe outbreak of measlesFreeman said.
According to the first Trump administration and the Biden Administration, billions of dollars were allocated to Covid through legislation, including the Covid Relief Bill and the US Rescue Plan Law.
At this stage, it is not clear how exactly how health departments will be affected by the decline in funds. But some are looking at what might mean to them. In Washington State, for example, health officials have been notified that more than $ 125 million of Covid’s financing has been immediately ended. They said they “have the effect” of procedures.
In Los Angeles Province, health officials said they might lose more than $ 80 million in basic financing for vaccinations and other services. An official wrote in an e -mail: “Many of this financing supports diseases monitoring, public health laboratory services, investigations into the disease outbreaks, and infection control activities in health care facilities and data transparency,” wrote an official in an email.
This story was originally shown on Fortune.com
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