Trump administration pulls billions in COVID funds, and health leaders warn of lasting damage
The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services is taking back $11 billion it provided to state and local health departments. States are evaluating the impact of the cuts.
President Trump’s administration is withdrawing billions of dollars given out to state and local health departments authorized during the COVID-19 pandemic, and public health leaders say the move will cause lasting damage.
The Trump administration is pulling back $11 billion in COVID-related funds previously authorized to state and local health departments.
The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services is pulling back $11.4 billion to local and state governments and nonprofit groups, as first reported by NBC News. The department says that the pandemic is over and that money can be better used to tackle chronic diseases.
Public health leaders say that pulling back the money that has already been approved by Congress will have repercussions.
Georges C. Benjamin, MD, executive director of the American Public Health Association, told Chief Healthcare Executive® that pulling back the funds will disrupt local and state efforts to guard against other potential emergencies and outbreaks. He calls it a “tragic loss of capacity of the public health system.”
“Those dollars were out there to build the infrastructure we needed for the next pandemic,” Benjamin says.
“All the COVID money that's out there right now, while that money went out under COVID, it was supposed to build long-term capacity for the public health infrastructure,” he says. “So you're going to see in the next few days to weeks, huge layoffs at state and local health departments at local levels.”
Andrew Nixon, director of communications for the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, gave a statement to NBC News explaining the department’s rationale.
"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," Nixon said in a statement. "HHS is prioritizing funding projects that will deliver on President Trump’s mandate to address our chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy Again."
Joseph Kanter, MD, CEO of the Association of State and Territories Health Officials, said that the “abrupt cancellation” of COVID-19 funding surprised health departments.
“These actions will unfortunately have a significant impact on public health preparedness and response,” Kanter said in a statement.
“This funding was appropriated by Congress and obligated to health departments with work plans, budgets, and timelines approved by federal agencies,” Kanter said. “These funds were intended for pandemic response, mitigation of key health security vulnerabilities that became apparent during the pandemic, and strengthening preparedness and response framework for the future.”
Kanter said state health departments used the money to modernize data systems, improve testing for measles and H5N1, improve tracking of infectious disease outbreaks, and bolster preparations for biomedical terrorism.
“We worry the abrupt loss of these activities will impair states and territories in their ability to respond to current and future threats,” Kanter said in a statement.
Dr. Erica Pan, director of the California Department of Health and the state’s public health officer, said that the state has been notified about the Trump administration rescinding the funds. California state and local agencies have utilized the COVID funds for monitoring respiratory viruses, testing, immunizations and vaccines, Pan said.
“This funding supports the public health work and data systems improved during the pandemic that helped California fill gaps in its existing public health infrastructure, including ongoing response to COVID-19 disease and other respiratory and vaccine-preventable diseases that require similar resources,” Pan said in a statement sent to Chief Healthcare Executive. “We are working to evaluate the impact of these actions.”
The Trump administration is pulling $350 million in funding from the state of New Jersey, angering state officials. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said Thursday that the state is going to pursue legal action to keep the funds, noting that the money was already approved by Congress.
Murphy described the Trump administration's cuts as "irrational and inexplicable."
"At a time when measles, tuberculosis, and bird flu have been reported in our region, these cuts will force our state to take contact tracers out of the field and vastly limit the ability of local health departments to follow up on reported cases," Murphy said. "These cuts will make it harder for parents to find vaccinations for their children, for providers to get lab results back in time to prevent the spread of severe illness, and for Federally Qualified Health Centers to deliver vital care."
The Washington State Department of Health received notice that the Trump administration is terminating more than $125 million in COVID-related funding, a spokesperson told Chief Healthcare Executive. The department is assessing the impact of the cuts.
The Maryland Department of Health said it “understands the potential for direct impact on the health of Marylanders. The Department is currently determining the full extent of these federal actions.”
The Pennsylvania Department of Health told Chief Healthcare Executive that it is reviewing the information from the federal government and evaluating the impact on programs and services. The New York State Department of Health also said it’s “reviewing these funding cuts for potential impacts.”
The National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention are also cancelling hundreds of millions of dollars in funds for COVID-related research, Nature reported.
Michael Lin, MD, a professor of neurobiology and bioengineering at Stanford University, said on X that the NIH terminated a research grant to develop coronavirus antiviral medications.
“The rationale given is that the pandemic is over,” Lin wrote on X. “In reality, people are dying of COVID at several times the rate of flu, and still getting long COVID.”
Benjamin says he worries about criticism directed at the federal health agencies, when in reality the directions are coming from the Trump administration to cut spending.
He says the Trump administration is “pulling money back with no idea what they're pulling back.”
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