On May 11th, the United States will end the COVID-19 public health and national emergency

declarations. At the same time, the White House will disband what's left of its COVID

response team. As the emergency phase of the pandemic winds down, so have infection rates.

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,

last week, the U.S. saw an average of 21,000 new COVID cases. For some contacts,

at its highest peak in January of 2021, the U.S. saw 250,000 new cases in one week.

But with more people relying on home tests and state reported data becoming more sporadic,

what do those numbers really mean? Meanwhile, the CDC still links about 2,000 deaths a week to COVID,

and the end of COVID's emergency status means big changes for how Americans receive COVID

care, including access to tests and vaccines. In this edition of our series Vaccination Nation,

we're talking about what it means to be in this phase of the pandemic and how the coming

changes will affect you and your family. I'm Jen White. You're listening to the 1A podcast,

where we get to the heart of the story. We'll be back with more in just a moment.

Let's jump into the conversation by welcoming our guests.

Joining us to discuss is Dan Diamond. He's a reporter covering public health policy at the

Washington Post. Dan, it's great to have you back. Jen, great to be back. Thanks.

Also with us is Dr. Saline Gounder. She's an infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist.

She's also the senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation. Dr. Gounder, welcome back to 1A.

Great to be here. So Dan, the White House COVID response team, it was created in February of 2020.

How significant is it that it's being disbanded? The White House set up this team,

initially a very small team under the Trump administration with Deborah Burke's three years ago.

A grudge to about three dozen people at its peak under President Biden. It was much more robust.

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