The White House will disband its Covid-19 response team, led by Indian-American physician Ashish Jha, as the pandemic’s public health emergency expires on May 11, officials said.
According to CNN, the team was in charge of organising the statewide deployment and delivery of vaccines, medicines, and medical supplies during President Joe Biden’s administration.
“As a result of this administration’s historic response to Covid-19, we as a nation are in a safer, better place than we were three years ago.
“Covid no longer disrupts our lives because of investments and our efforts to mitigate its worst impacts,” CNN quoted a senior administration official as saying in a statement.
Nonetheless, the official stated that Covid is not over and that combatting it remains a top priority for the administration.
“Transitioning out of the emergency phase is the natural evolution of the Covid response.”
The United States continues to be the worst-affected country in the world, with the highest number of Covid-19 cases and deaths.
As of Thursday, it had recorded a total of 106,037,022 cases since the pandemic began in early 2020, with a death toll of 1,152,525.
