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So today we've got myself, Artie, and Phil here, and the three of us are going to discuss

the Biden administration's recent announcement that the end of the public health emergency

will come on May 11th of this year in the United States. Of course, this in no way means that

the pandemic itself is over, no longer a problem, not making people sick, hospitalizing people,

making people miss work, school, killing people, et cetera. This is a kind of pure administrative

move and part of the broader process of kicking COVID to the private market.

So just real quick, in terms of how the United States is currently doing with regard to COVID,

over 500 people are still dying per day. According to CDC data, 21,378 people have died of

COVID in the U.S. since the beginning of the year, reporting through February

8th. And, you know, I think with the byvalent booster rate, still not breaking 16% in the United

States, it's really worrying to think of how this is going to map onto our existing health finance

system here in the U.S. So let's talk about that, the context and the specifics of this announcement,

and then we'll dive deeper into some of the under-discussed implications of this. And I think

we should start off by discussing the announcement itself, which came right before the House of

...