The United States is getting closer to seeing the end of the covid pandemic.

Greene County Public Health Director Becky Wolf says May 11th is when the federal emergency proclamation is set to end, which has been in place since 2019 when the covid pandemic began. She tells Raccoon Valley Radio things like reporting positive cases, having access to a portal for public health agencies and the covid tracker on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website will stop on May 11th and instead covid numbers will be included with all other respiratory illnesses on a weekly basis. Wolf sees this as a positive sign moving forward.

“Personally, I think we should be happy about this because this is really signaling that we’re ready to maybe shut the door down on worries about (the) pandemic. We’ve survived it. Unfortunately, we lost a lot of people through this whole thing. But when you look at typically when a pandemic happens it’s usually about 3-4 years for it to burn down.”   

Wolf notes what will continue once the federal proclamation ends is the emergency use authorization for vaccines and therapeutic covid medicines will be provided for individuals who are at higher health risks if they test positive for covid can receive treatment. 

Wolf reminds everyone that covid vaccines remain free of charge for now, but once the national stockpile is used up, vaccines will be charged through insurance, as well as how they get access to the covid vaccine.

“Right now it’s all coming down from the Feds (federal government for free). But I would anticipate that in the future that we’ll either have it through a private, like a Pfizer company, directly from a company, a pharmaceutical company, or we will get it through the Vaccine for Children program.” 

Wolf adds Greene County Public Health will continue to offer free at-home Test Iowa kits for covid at least through the rest of this year. She reminds anyone who is on Medicaid or Medicare that on April 1st the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare will no longer have the continuous coverage requirement for covid treatment and members will have to fill out a full eligibility application to not have those services interrupted.