It’s official: the federal COVID-19 pandemic emergency ends in just a few days! The announcement from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) explained that the initial emergency declaration was “designed to provide flexibility and minimize burdens for the health care industry as it faced the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on current COVID-19 trends, HHS plans to let the COVID-19 Declaration expire at the end of the day on May 11, 2023.”
“Provide flexibility and minimize burdens” is a neat bureaucratic euphemism for “throwing liberty out the window,” but nevertheless, the end of the pandemic emergency is worth celebrating.
I’m sure we can expect the White House to spike the football over doing something that it should’ve done a long time ago, but one thing that the administration will probably let pass by with less of a mention is the end of most of the federal vaccine mandates.
The Washington Times reports that the administration tied the end of the mandates to the end of the pandemic emergency because of “progress in living with the virus, with death rates at their lowest levels since the pandemic began in early 2020” and “widespread compliance among the federal workforce, with 98% of the workforce receiving at least one dose of a vaccine or securing an exemption as of January 2022.”
I guess it’s easy to tout “widespread compliance” when the government threatened the employment and livelihood of those it thought should get the shots and many people chose quitting their jobs over getting the jabs.
“Our Administration’s vaccination requirements helped ensure the safety of workers in critical workforces including those in the healthcare and education sectors, protecting themselves and the populations they serve, and strengthening their ability to provide services without disruptions to operations,” bragged a statement from the White House. It added, “Our COVID-19 vaccine requirements bolstered vaccination across the nation, and our broader vaccination campaign has saved millions of lives.”