The Department of Health and Human Services has cancelled tens of thousands of federal grants that state and local health departments were using to track infections, health disparities, vaccinations, mental health services and other health issues.
Stopwork notifications began arriving late on Monday nights or early Tuesday mornings, and became effective immediately, and authorities scrambled.
“The end of the pandemic provides the cause of ending community-related grants and cooperation agreements. These grants and cooperation agreements were issued for limited purposes. As the pandemic was over, to improve the impact of the pandemic, grants and cooperation agreements have run out of limited purposes.
Much of the funds have already been spent, but the federal government said it expects to collect the money from 30 days after the notification of cancellation is sent.
The Department of Health and Human Services said the total $11.4 billion grant was primarily used to respond to Covid-19, including testing, vaccinations, and to hire healthcare workers in the Covid-responsive community.
HHS said the grant also funded a programme established in 2021 to address health disparities in communities of high-risk and underserved patients.
The agency did not say it would be recovering the money already allocated by the council.
“The Covid-19 pandemic is over. HHS will not waste billions of taxpayer dollars in response to a nonexistent pandemic that Americans have been moving for years. HHS is prioritizing funding projects that will address President Trump's chronic disease outbreak and provide President Trump's orders to make America healthier again,” HHS said.
However, state and local health officials said the grants are being used for other public health priorities, such as tracking and responding to ongoing measles outbreaks in Texas, or upgrading outdated software information systems.
“meanwhile [these grants] It can help people to prevent illness or dying of Covid-19. They also prevent them from getting sick or dying of other illnesses. “We're excited to be aware of this,” said Adrian Casarlotti, Chief of Government and Public Relations for the National Association of County & City Health Authorities.
