Biden will remove the Coronavirus emergency on May 11th.

 

Joe Biden. Politco/AP.

Joe Biden will remove the Coronavirus emergency order on May 11th. Politico. Republicans have long called for the end of the emergency and Biden released this information to attempt to blunt criticism. Ending the order would also likely bypass the Supreme Court case about Title 42, an emergency order that removes illegal immigrants. The case is not due to be heard until June, so if the emergency is removed it will end up being legally moot. It is unclear how ending the pandemic emergency will work as the emergency has affected great swaths of American governance. The other main effect from ending the emergency would be passing costs of the vaccines and treatments on to consumers and not on the government. 

My Comment:

It's always amazing to me that anything Coronavirus is still going on. For the vast majority of people the virus ended last spring, or summer at the latest. Nobody really cares any more except the few people with bad immune systems or the true blue zero-covid people. Even China has moved on. 

It's clear to me that the emergency order should be removed. For most people now the Coronavirus is either the equivalent of a bad cold or a weak flu. It still kills people, but so does the flu, and we don't have emergency declarations for that. Removing this order is long overdue. 

Of course, you can trust that even when Biden does the right thing, he's doing it for the wrong reasons. This isn't a measure response to a weakening virus, it's pure politics. Biden knew that if he didn't do something enough Democrats would have defected from his party to end the pandemic response anyways. By doing it now he can do an end run around the Republican legislation in the house. 

But, more critically, he is trying to get rid of Title 42. Title 42 remains the only immigration law that is even slightly enforced in the United States. Biden wants to get rid of it for no other reason that potential Democratic voters are being removed. And he is trying to avoid losing in the Supreme Court. Doing so would render the issue moot as well as ensure that the flow of illegal immigrants keeps coming. 

This will probably be hated by the zero-covid people. They will no longer get free vaccines at the cost of the US taxpayer. Given that the vast majority of people no longer want the vaccines due to perceived side effects and a lack of effectiveness, it won't matter much. But for the people that want the vaccines I expect them to see quite a bit of sticker shock for the next round of vaccines. 

The pandemic can be officially considered over now. With even Biden acknowledging that the virus is no longer a big deal the world can finally move on. Of course, most of us moved along a long time ago, but that's neither here nor there.