From WSJopinion: President Biden finally dared to say in an interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes” that the “pandemic is over.” But his administration still hasn’t lifted its official finding of a public-health emergency.
“60 Minutes” that the “pandemic is over.” Various public-health eminences are saying he’s wrong, but his comments recognize the reality of the disease at this stage and the public mood. The trouble is that his Administration still hasn’t lifted its official finding of a Covid public-health emergency.
But global Covid deaths in the first week of September were the lowest since March 2020 when the World Health Organization declared Covid a pandemic, and even Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus last week said “the end is in sight.” But for most Americans, Covid is no worse than a bad flu. “If you are up-to-date on your vaccines today, and you avail yourself of the treatments, your chances of dying [from] COVID are vanishingly rare and certainly much lower than your risk of getting into trouble with the flu,” White House Covid response coordinator Ashish Jha told National Public Radio.
The reason is almost certainly money. A March 2020 Covid law enables the government to hand out billions of dollars in welfare benefits to millions of people as long as the emergency is in effect. This includes more generous food stamps and a restriction on state work requirements. It also limits states from removing from their Medicaid rolls individuals who are otherwise no long financially eligible.