It’s officially official - the pandemic is over!
There were two declarations signed by President Trump back in 2020 due to COVID-19, a national emergency and a public health emergency. Combined, they gave the government loads of new authority to modify policies and provide aid to Americans who were suddenly out of a job or had other hardships due to the pandemic. One of those is now ending early.
Here are Five Fast Facts on the end of the COVID-19 national emergency:
- 🆘 National Emergency - The national emergency addressed extensions to deadlines for things like HIPAA, COBRA, and filing claims or appeals. This was supposed to expire in May, but bipartisan support in both houses of Congress pushed the issue up a few weeks and President Biden signed it. It will now end about a month early. SO MUCH BETTER!
- ⚕️ Public Health Emergency - The public health emergency addressed coverage mandates like free COVID-19 tests and vaccinations. It is still scheduled to expire in May as planned, though other changes in December allowed states to start rolling this one back already. So the “early bird” is actually the slow one!
- 💵 Student Loans - One potential impact for normal folks is on student loans, which were paused during the pandemic. Repayments were set to start again in May, so the early end of the national emergency isn’t a big change there. However, the one-time forgiveness program is currently waiting on a decision by the Supreme Court, so we don’t yet know how that will turn out and how this early end will affect it.
- ❓ Related Program Effects - It is unclear exactly how this will impact a lot of related programs. Things like mortgage forgiveness, caregiver home visits for veterans, and the immigration program called Title 42 were tied into these emergency declarations, so they may see some changes in the near future.
- 🤔 How Does This Impact Your Paycheck? - For most people, there probably won’t be many changes. You may have to pay for COVID-19 tests and vaccinations if you need them, but that was going to happen later in the year, anyway. The student loan thing is potentially a big deal…if you have student loans (and depending on what the Supreme Court does). If the forgiveness does go through it will be tax dollars paying for it, so there's that.
🔥Bottom line: A bit of undeniably good news: all of the jobs lost during the pandemic (22 million) have now been recouped. It took almost three years, but we’re glad it’s finally happened (as are Paychecks everywhere)!
Otherwise, it doesn’t seem like there are a lot of big impacts for normal folks because much of what’s going to happen was going to happen anyway…now it’ll just happen a few weeks sooner. This seems like politicians being politicians - ending this early is a bit like slam dunking with 3 seconds to go when you’re ahead by 14 points. Way to go, champ, you’re awesome.
The official guidelines can be found here, if you’re interested.
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