(The Hill) — The Department of Health and Human Services is canceling tens of billions of dollars in federal grants that state and local health departments were using to track infectious diseases, health disparities, vaccinations, mental health services, and other health issues.
The stop-work notices began arriving late Monday night or early Tuesday morning and were effective immediately, sending officials scrambling.
“The end of the pandemic provides cause to terminate COVID related grants and cooperative agreements. These grants and cooperative agreements were issued for a limited purpose; to ameliorate the effects of the pandemic. Now that the pandemic is over, the grants and cooperative agreements are no longer necessary as their limited purpose has run out,” one of the notices described to The Hill said.
Much of the funding has already been spent, but the federal government said it expects to recover the money starting 30 days after the termination notices were sent.
The Department of Health and Human Services said the grants, totaling $11.4 billion, were primarily used for COVID-19 response, including testing, vaccination and for hiring community health workers responding to COVID.
HHS said the grants also funded a program established in 2021 to address COVID health disparities among high-risk and underserved patients.
The agency did not say how it planned to recover money already appropriated by Congress.
“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. HHS is prioritizing funding projects that will deliver on President Trump’s mandate to address our chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy Again,” HHS said in a statement.
However, state and local health officials said the grants have been used for other public health priorities, like tracking and responding to an ongoing measles outbreak in Texas or upgrading antiquated software information systems.
“While [these grants] can support keeping people from getting sick or dying with COVID-19, they also prevent them from getting sick or dying from other diseases as well. So it has a ripple effect across public health practice,” said Adriane Casalotti, Chief of Government and Public Affairs at the National Association of County & City Health Officials.
