Joe Biden ends US Covid emergency status after 3 years

President Joe Biden on Monday officially ended the Covid national health emergency that for more than three years underpinned extraordinary efforts to provide care for a country where more than a million people died from the disease.The White House said Biden signed a law passed earlier by Congress "which terminates the national emergency related to the Covid-19 pandemic."

This closes lavish funding streams for Covid tests, free vaccines and other emergency measures thrown together -- starting in January 2020 -- to try and free the world's biggest economy from the grip of the global pandemic. A rule known as Title 42 was used during the official health emergency to impose stringent restrictions on acceptance of undocumented arrivals. That is set to end, forcing the administration to adopt a different legal mechanism if it wants to avoid the politically damaging potential of new influxes. 

The new law immediately ends the national emergency and public health emergency first enacted during the Trump administration and continued through the Biden administration. Former President Donald Trump first declared a national emergency over the virus on 13 March, 2020, retroactive to 1 March of that year. The declarations allowed federal funding to be freed up to cities and states for testing and vaccination centers.