What the COVID public health emergency ending means for you
The public health emergency for COVID-19 is ending today. It's probably been a while since a friend or family member last tested positive or went to the hospital for the virus for you. WRIL's investigative data journalist Ali Ingersoll found out what this declaration means for you. With the public health emergency ending, there will be changes to what data will be collected. North Carolina health officials say they will be looking at some metrics still like hospitalization. So taking a look at those, here's what we're seeing right now. The fewest COVID hospitalizations since we started collecting this information.
As cases, hospitalizations and deaths have leveled off and now with the end of the public health emergency, health officials are saying that it's essentially signaling that the pandemic is over. We're back to a new normal where, you know, we still have COVID, it's still endemic, but now we know how to deal with it. That's Dr. Adia Ross, the chief medical officer at Duke Regional Hospital. She's been on the front line of COVID care. The early days were just feelings of helplessness. Much has changed since those early days, though.
We have vaccines and medications, plenty of PPE now, tests you can take at home, all of which weren't around three plus years ago when the emergency was first declared. Free access to COVID vaccines and treatment will eventually go away now that the public health emergency is ending. Currently, there's a surplus, but once the supply runs dry, it'll be like the flu shot where most people have to get those through insurance or federal health plans. Speaking of federal health benefits, those are being rolled back to the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates between 175,000 and about 550,000 North Carolinians will lose Medicaid coverage during the unwinding of the continuous enrollment provision. Ross says, as the emergency has lifted, it's important to remember those who have had their lives permanently altered from the virus, along with the more than 3,900 North Carolinians who died from it in these last three years. It's hard to even understand that magnitude, but yet we need to go on. And I think the way we honor people is by continuing on learning from the lessons that we have here.
For WRL News, I'm Ali Ingersoll.
Public Health, coronavirus, pandemic