What does the end of the COVID public health emergency mean ?

A pedestrian walks by a closed Center for Covid Control Testing site at 177 W. Lake St. in the Loop in January 2022. Gov. J.B. Pritzker has announced the state’s public health emergency will end May 11, meaning free testing may be harder to find. (Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times)

A little over three years after the coronavirus pandemic began, Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced the state’s public health emergency will end Thursday.

While infectious disease experts emphasize that people can still get COVID, it does change residents’ access to free tests.