JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — More than three years after it was first declared an emergency and changed the world, the declaration of COVID-19 as a federal public health emergency ends Thursday.
Costs for COVID-19 vaccines, treatments and testing may go up for you after 11:59 P.M. Thursday. According to the CDC, these will remain available, but will be paid for the way other medical expenses are paid for.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services states the "traditional health care market," meaning your private insurer, Medicare, or Medicaid, will take over in coming months. A program announced last month will help uninsured people access COVID-19 care.
The way positive COVID-19 cases are tracked will change, the CDC states, which means the CDC will have less data to work with.
Seventy-five percent of children and adolescents have had COVID-19, according to the CDC's numbers from last year. The Kaiser Family Foundation reports the number of people with long COVID is going down.
Access to telemedicine will remain in place, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
Telemedicine is by far the only change from the pandemic that's still either here to stay or having a ripple effect. There is some good news for your money. Last month had the smallest increase in consumer prices in two years, according to a report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics out Wednesday. Inflation is still much higher than the Federal Reserve's goal.