The Biden administration is gearing up to extend their COVID emergency powers on Friday, with the The Department of Health and Human Services expected to renew the public health emergency.
It was originally declared in January 2020, and has been repeatedly renewed since then. The “most recent extension set to expire July 15,” according to Bloomberg.
“The Biden administration has said it will give states 60 days’ notice before ending the emergency to allow sufficient time to prepare for changes to certain programs and regulatory authorities. HHS last extended the public health emergency in May,” the outlet reported.
NEW – U.S. set to extend COVID "health emergency" on Friday: reports
— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) July 11, 2022
The news comes as Omicron subvariants continue to drive up cases in the U.S. while experts warn that BA.5 is the “most transmissible” variant to date.
Officials are now warning of a “new wave” of coronavirus infections despite hundreds of millions of Americans having been repeatedly injected with COVID-19 vaccines and “booster” jabs.
*US SAID TO PREPARE TO EXTEND COVID HEALTH EMERGENCY FRIDAY
Until Nov 2024?
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) July 11, 2022
“The subvariant of Omicron known as BA.5 is now dominant, according to federal estimates released Tuesday, and together with BA.4, another subvariant, it is fueling an outbreak of cases and hospitalizations,” reported the New York Times, which added that positive cases of the virus are now “shooting upward” and are “now higher than during most other waves of the pandemic.”
“I think there’s an underappreciation of what it’s going to do to the country, and it already is exerting its effect,” said Scripps Research molecular medicine professor Eric Topol.
Both BA.5 and BA.4 Omicron subvariants initially emerged during the winter and contain mutations in their spike proteins that differ from other strains of the virus, rendering vaccination more or less obsolete.
