The Covid era in America ends definitively.
President Joe Biden has signed a bill that immediately puts an end to the national emergency declared in March 2020, one month earlier than expected by the US administration. The latest regulations related to the separate public health emergency (at the basis of the severe restrictions on immigration at the border with Mexico) which will end on May 11.
The measure, proposed by the Republicans, also obtained the support of several Democrats and was approved in recent months by the House and the Senate while the president, who had publicly declared his opposition, then stated that he would not veto the law.
The White House in a meager statement explained that Biden signed the measure behind closed doors.
Therefore, the latest rules for foreign tourists, who until now could only enter the US if vaccinated, also lapse.
The vote to end the national emergency before May has prompted the administration to wrap up some of its programs faster in recent months, a senior government official said.
Among the changes is, for example, the end of the Department of Housing and Urban Development's mortgage suspension program, while the Department of Veterans Affairs will return to requiring home visits to determine eligibility for assistance of caregivers.
The end of the public health emergency next month, however,
The public health emergency has allowed the government to provide many Americans with free Covid tests, treatments and vaccines, as well as providing greater social safety net benefits.
The national emergency, on the other hand, made it possible to adopt radical measures to respond to the virus and support the country's economic, health and welfare systems.
"House Republicans are standing by their commitment to America," Speaker Kevin McCarthy wrote on Twitter.
In the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 1.13 million people have died from Covid in the past three years.
Meanwhile, the White House is launching a $5 billion program to accelerate new vaccines and treatments against the coronavirus.
Project Next Gen follows on from the Trump-era Operation Warp Speed.
This is an initiative supported and requested by many scientists, public health experts and politicians, with the warning that current vaccines and treatments have steadily lost their effectiveness and new therapies are needed.