With the COVID Emergency Status officially ending, what does it mean for Colorado?

When COVID-19 first struck the nation in early 2020, federal, state, and local governments quickly responded by issuing several public health orders. The intentions of the health orders, in the beginning, were to stop the spread of the disease and reduce deaths caused by it.

However, many of these health orders and mandates involved businesses being shut down and people being forced to wear masks in most indoor buildings. But now, three years later as the threat of the disease has decreased, the federal government has ended the COVID-19 emergency status nationwide.

President Joe Biden announced last January that he planned to end the COVID national and public Health Emergencies on May 11. On May 12, it was announced that Biden would be eliminating certain vaccine requirements for federal workers and international travelers. The week before on May 5, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared an end to the global COVID-19 emergency but reminded countries that the virus remains to be a worldwide threat.

What Does the End of the COVID Emergency Status Mean for Americans?

According to CBS News, the White House is winding down its COVID-19 response team, but little will change in federal funding for vaccines and treatments for the virus. The COVID-19 vaccines will still be available for free until the nation’s stockpile of vaccines expires or run out.

But White House COVID-19 Coordinator Ashish Jha told CBS News reporters the country has an ample supply of vaccines. The shots will remain free for most Americans because they qualify under the Affordable Care Act.

A White House official also told the news source that the U.S. still has a significant supply of Paxlovid, which is the antiviral that has proven to be effective in preventing severe disease and death for patients who are high-risk. But eventually, patients will have to pay for the drug through their insurance as a Medicare Part D drug.

Also in May, the president signed an executive order stating that federal workers and contractors will not have to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or obtain an approved exemption. “We no longer need a government-wide vaccination requirement for federal employees or federally specified safety protocols for federal contractors,” President Biden said in the executive order.

Biden also released the vaccine mandates for people traveling to the U.S. from foreign countries. “Considering the progress that we have made and based on the latest guidance from our public health experts, I have determined that we no longer need the international air travel restrictions that I imposed in October 2021,” the president said in his executive order.

What Does All of This Mean for Coloradoans?

When the news came out in January that the emergency status would be ending in May, Colorado Governor Jared Polis said that most state health orders had already ended. “Governor Polis is thrilled that the White House intends to finally provide an end date for the federal emergency,” a spokesperson for the Governor’s Office told KDVR. “Colorado was one of the first states to end pandemic-related health restrictions in July 2021 and was one of the first states to reopen and get kids back in school. The current Colorado declaration contains no restrictions and is focused on the state remaining eligible for funding under the federal emergency declaration, and the state declaration and will not outlast the end of the federal declaration.”

According to Colorado Newsline, the governor hasn’t issued any new orders related to COVID-19 since he ended the health emergency executive order and issued a disaster recovery order in July 2021. He did though renew the recovery order on a monthly basis just so that the state would have access to federal funding that was still available due to the pandemic. But even that order is now removed since the federal government ended the emergency status.

CPR reported that vaccines and treatment won’t be affected immediately, but that could change. For Colorado residents who have private insurance plans, Health First Colorado, or Child Health Plan Plus (CHP+) the vaccine will still be available for free.

Children who are “uninsured, underinsured, on Medicaid or Medicaid eligible, and/or Alaskan Native or American Indian” will still receive free vaccines due to the federal child vaccination program. Uninsured adults will still be able to get vaccinated for free at local pharmacies due to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Bridge Access Program for COVID-19 vaccines.

But, that will also eventually change because the federal government announced that it will stop buying the COVID-19 shots for distribution, but a date for that has not yet been set. When that happens payment, coverage, and access to the vaccine could change.

“Treatments such as Paxlovid will continue to be provided free as long as supplies last, independent of the public health emergency,” Thomas Campbell, an infectious disease doctor at the UCHealth Anschutz campus told CPR. “Those will eventually be transitioned to typical coverage through insurance and third-party payers.”

Free tests for the disease will also be discontinued now that the emergency order has been lifted. At-home rapid tests are still available at some state distribution sites, but that will end once the supplies run out since the federal government will stop paying for them.

A rule mandating private insurance companies to cover eight rapid tests a month will also end, and many insurance companies said they will stop coverage for tests. But some local public health agencies will continue to offer testing at free community testing sites.

But one setback will be that up to 325,000 Colorado residents may become ineligible for the state’s Medicaid program. During the nationwide COVID emergency status, federal laws required states to continue Medicaid coverage without a standard eligibility renewal and disenrollment process. But now that is no longer the case.

Locally, all health orders related to COVID-19 have officially ended including all mask mandates. People can now go into hospitals, doctor’s offices, and retirement homes without being required by federal public health orders to wear a mask. Even workers at local hospitals and physician offices can now be seen smiling without masks covering their faces.

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