By Robert Schaulis
Last week, the health officials within the Trump administration announced plans to abruptly end $11.4 billion in funds to local and state health agencies and programs — funds that had initially been allocated to combat COVID-19.
News broke last Tuesday that funding, provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to be distributed to state and local health programs, would be rescinded.
“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 Director of Communications Andrew Nixon said in a statement provided to news services. “HHS is prioritizing funding projects that will deliver on President Trump’s mandate to address our chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy Again.”
On Friday, Humboldt County’s Department of Health and Human Services confirmed that the cuts would affect the county. The county’s health department is facing more than $3 million in immediate cuts, according to county DHHS Public Information Specialist Christine Messinger.
Humboldt County Public Health Director Sofia Pereira issued a statement on the loss of funding, noting that it would mean cuts to staff and prevent plans for upgrading the county’s disease response capacity.
“While we knew the COVID funding was not going to last forever, portions of the funding were intended to last for the next year,” Pereira said. “However, we were notified today that the funding is being terminated effective Tuesday, March 24. The abrupt end to this funding means we are letting go of seven extra help staff, including two public health nurses, two community health outreach workers, one medical office assistant and two communicable disease investigators. Their last day will be April 4.
“Additionally, $1.2 million that was intended to go toward our new Public Health Laboratory is now no longer an option, and we will no longer be able to upgrade our old lab equipment with new, needed equipment that would save staff countless hours and strengthen our regional response to diseases.”
Pereira continued: “Public Health has been historically underfunded, and while this funding came about during COVID, we’ve been able to use these COVID dollars to bolster and help maintain public health infrastructure. This funding has helped support responses, not only to COVID, but other infectious diseases as well, including our measles exposure in May and the Shigella outbreak in September.”
At a town hall meeting this Sunday in Eureka, U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) addressed questions about cuts to community health and anxieties surrounding cuts to federal funding of Medicare, Medicaid and essential community health programs in the region.
At a town hall meeting this Sunday in Eureka, U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) addressed questions about cuts to community health and anxieties surrounding cuts to federal funding of Medicare, Medicaid and essential community health programs in the region.
“We’ve got our work cut out for us here. When Elon Musk is sort of tweeting his way through public health policy, we’re in deep trouble — especially with viruses trans-mutating and shutting down entire industries, already, with the COVID pandemic,” Huffman told the Times-Standard at that event. “(The pandemic), thankfully, is under control, but that could change with mutations if we stop the public health work that’s critical to keep us safe.
“These folks in the Trump administration kind of want to memory-hole the whole pandemic. They want to rewrite history about it and pretend like it wasn’t that big a deal; it was just kind of a liberal power grab. And it’s just so reckless and so dangerous. The measles outbreak that we’re seeing in Texas and other states now should be a wake-up call about this, but it’s sort of devolved into partisan politics. We’ve got to get back to actual science and facts driving public policy — especially in this space. Maybe we can be partisan on other issues, but when it comes to something that could wipe us all out and kill us, we really should put politics aside and just listen to the scientists and the experts.”
Although the federal public health emergency has been declared over, AP News reporting noted, COVID is still killing Americans; on average, 458 people per week have died from COVID, nationally, over the past four weeks, according to CDC data.
AP News also reported that two-dozen research National Institutes of Health grants intended for continued study of COVID have recently been rescinded.
Robert Schaulis can be reached at 707-441-0585.
