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Public Health Emergency Extended
By: Emily H. Lineweaver
On April 12, 2022, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that the COVID-19 public health emergency will be extended another ninety (90) days, effective April 16, 2022, the day it was set to expire. The extension allows certain programs to continue that were implemented under the powers granted to the government and its agencies during the public health emergency. These include free at-home tests for Medicare beneficiaries and the funding for certain COVID-19 treatments.
The extension comes as new confirmed cases are rising again due to the BA.2 subvariant of Omicron. According to a Bloomberg Law report, “[t]he U.S. is seeing 30,000 new COVID cases a day, driven by the BA.2 subvariant,” however hospitalizations “remain far below highs seen in January.”
