On Tuesday, the House ignored President Joe Biden’s opposition and voted to end COVID-19’s public health emergency. House Democrats also supported a second bill to remove the requirement that federal workers be vaccinated against COVID.

Republicans had planned the Pandemic is Over Act, and Freedom for Health Care Workers Act. On Monday night, the White House announced it would end the national COVID emergency. The White House announced today that it would not vote for the bills.

However, Republicans continued to push ahead and passed both measures with ease despite the GOP’s narrow majority in Congress.

The Pandemic is Over Act which would end the public emergency in health care, was passed 220-210. Every Republican voted for it while every Democrat voted against it. Seven Democrats helped to pass the Freedom for Health Care Workers Act (227-203). This would have ended the federal vaccination requirement for federal workers in health care.

Despite the fact that the House’s Democratic leaders had argued against both bills, those Democrat votes were cast. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), said that he opposed the Pandemic is Over Act, because it would “abruptly end the COVID-19 public safety emergency virtually overnight.” Democrats on the floor also opposed the bill to eliminate the vaccine requirement.

In the months that President Biden stated in an interview that the “pandemic” is over, support among Democrats has waned for maintaining a high level of COVID emergency. The Senate and House Democrat-led approved a defense bill to require the Pentagon to end its COVID-19 vaccination mandate. It passed the House easily with a vote of 350-80.

The White House stated this week that it opposed the GOP’s attempt to repeal the vaccine requirement for health workers. It also said Biden would veto any bill passed by the Senate and the House.

The White House stated that COVID-19 was no longer a disruptive threat. However, Congress should not reverse the protection for vulnerable patients and our health care workers, who have done so much to protect us.

The White House did not say it would veto a bill to end the Public Health Emergency (PHE), even though the White House stated it opposed the bill.

The White House stated that “if the PHE were to abruptly cease, it would cause confusion and chaos in this critical wind-down.” “Due to uncertainty, tens or millions of Americans could lose their health insurance abruptly, and states could lose billions in funding,” the White House stated.