The United States Officially Ends Covid-19 Emergency Status
- AP Photo/Susan Walsh
VIVA – President of the United States, Joe Biden, on Monday, officially ended COVID-19 emergency status. The White House stated Biden signed a law passed earlier by Congress that terminates the national emergency related to the COVID-19 Pandemic.
This closes lavish funding streams for Covid tests, free vaccines, and other emergency measures thrown together – starting in January 2020 – to try and free the world's biggest economy from the grip of the global pandemic.
"Although the United States is now formally turning its back on the worldwide pandemic, the Biden administration is already working on a next-generation vaccine and other measures to combat any future variant of the virus," the White House said.
The next-generation vaccine is referred to as Project NextGen, which will accelerate and streamline the rapid development of next-generation vaccines and treatments through public-private collaboration.
As information, the COVID-19 pandemic in the US was first confirmed on January 21, 2020, in Washington state. The first US COVID-19 patient contracted the disease after 5 days of returning from the city of Wuhan, where the pandemic began.
By March 12, 2020, 1,000 people had been diagnosed with COVID-19. A total of 40 deaths were confirmed, 31 of which occurred in Washington state.
Other new cases were also found in 49 of the 50 American states, from the capital Washington DC to Puerto Rico, leaving West Virginia as the only state without a positive case of COVID-19. The administration of then President Donald Trump declared it a national emergency on March 13, 2020.