This Thursday, May 11, marks the end of the COVID-19 public emergency. For some, it ended as much as a year ago, when the federal transportation mask mandate abruptly ended on April 18, 2022 with a federal judge’s ruling. For others, the pandemic was never taken seriously, so ending the emergency is a nonissue.
Yet the SARS-CoV2 virus that causes COVID-19 still circulates, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. New variants continue to emerge as people get infected. The good news is that hospital systems are no longer strained by people who get infected, as over 98% of counties have low community transmission levels, while slightly less than 1% are at a medium level and less than 0.5% are at a high transmission level.
