Federal health officials said they are cutting $11.4 billion in COVID-19-related funds for state and local public health departments — money that was largely used for COVID-19 testing, virus research and community health jobs.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago,” the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement Tuesday.
The statement said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expects to recover the money beginning 30 days after termination notices, which began being sent out on Monday. The move was first reported by NBC News.
“This is just one in a series of many, many cuts we’re seeing across health agencies across the country,” Dr. Céline Gounder, CBS News medical contributor and editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News, said on CBS News 24/7 on Wednesday.
“This … is money that had been going to state, local, territorial, tribal health departments across the country, and as we know, as was the case with a lot of COVID funding, it was not just supporting COVID-related programs, but many other things,” she said, noting wastewater surveillance as one example of what’s being lost with these cuts, which helps experts look for infectious diseases and other toxins in the water.
“This has direct applications to the measles outbreak in West Texas right now. It gives us an early warning system for where there might be measles in other areas, where they need to be focusing measles vaccinations, and that program is falling victim to this,” Gounder said. “And state (and) local health departments really depend on that CDC money. The CDC functions as a funnel of funding to the state and local level, and in some cases, it’s 90% of their budget.”
Lori Freeman, CEO of the National Association of County and City Health Officials, said much of the funding was set to end soon anyway. “It’s ending in the next six months,” she said. “There’s no reason — why rescind it now? It’s just cruel and unusual behavior.”
Minnesota Commissioner of Health Dr. Brooke Cunningham said in a statement, “We learned yesterday that the federal government has unilaterally terminated approximately $226 million in grants to Minnesota Department of Health related to the COVID-19 pandemic. This termination is effective immediately and impacts ongoing work and contracts. This action was sudden and unexpected.”
She added, “It will take time to figure out all of the impacts of this action, but these cuts are a tremendous loss — made worse by the uncertainty and chaos that our federal partners have introduced into this process.”
California Department of Public Health Director and State Public Health Officer Dr. Erica Pan said in a statement the department “received notice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that it intends to immediately end state and local public health funding awarded during COVID-19 that supports respiratory virus monitoring, testing and response, immunizations and vaccines for children, and health disparities efforts.”
“This funding supports the public health work and data systems improved during the pandemic that helped California fill gaps in its existing public health infrastructure, including ongoing response to COVID-19 disease and other respiratory and vaccine-preventable diseases that require similar resources,” Pan said. “We are working to evaluate the impact of these actions. All Californians deserve to live in healthy and thriving communities, which is the role of public health. CDPH remains committed to seeking the resources required to support the critical, lifesaving infrastructure needed to keep people healthy and protect them against infectious disease, vaccine-preventable diseases and health emergencies.”
In a related move, more than two dozen COVID-related research grants funded by the National Institutes of Health have been canceled. Earlier this month, the Trump administration shut down ordering from covidtest.gov, the site where Americans could have COVID-19 tests delivered to their mailboxes for no charge.
Although the COVID federal public health emergency has ended, the virus is still killing Americans: 458 people per week on average have died from COVID over the past four weeks, according to CDC data.
HHS wouldn’t provide many details about how the federal government expects to recover the money from what it called “impacted recipients.” But HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said in an email: “The $11.4 billion is undisbursed funds remaining.”
Freeman said her understanding is that state health departments already had the COVID money.
“The funding was authorized by Congress, was appropriated by Congress, and it was out the door, basically, into the hands of the grantees” — states, she said, which decide how to distribute it locally.
Under both the first Trump administration and the Biden administration, billions of dollars was allocated for COVID response through legislation, including a COVID relief bill and the American Rescue Plan Act.
