U.S. ending COVID-19 public emergency poses profound impacts

LOS ANGELES, May 11: U.S. COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) declaration is set to expire on Thursday. The move will bring tremendous social impacts, lead to a lack of public attention on pandemic preparedness and responses, and add burdens to the poor and minority populations, a leading epidemiologist told Xinhua on Wednesday.

The PHE was announced by the then-U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar in January 2020 to implement temporary measures and allocate resources to better contain the pandemic.