RFK Jr. Just Declared: The Covid Scam is Officially 'OVER'

"The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic"...

After years of emergency pandemic funding, the Department of Health and Human Services is pulling back more than $11 billion in unspent COVID-19 grants, marking a major shift in the federal government’s public health strategy.

According to an HHS statement this week, the funding—originally allocated to state and community health departments, NGOs, and international recipients—is “no longer necessary” now that the public health emergency has officially ended.

“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,” said Andrew Nixon, HHS Director of Communications.

The rescinded funds had largely been used to support COVID testing, vaccination programs, community health worker initiatives, and efforts to address so-called “Covid health disparities,” particularly among racial and ethnic minority groups and rural populations. But under new leadership, HHS has been reassessing those priorities.

The moves are part of a broader restructuring under HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has made clear his intention to redirect public health resources toward chronic disease prevention as part of the Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.

In addition to the clawback of COVID funding, HHS is also closing the Office of Long COVID Research and Practice, a short-lived entity created in 2023 to study and coordinate care for patients with lingering symptoms after infection. Internal emails confirmed the closure, though it remains unclear whether the office’s few staff members will be reassigned elsewhere in the department.

HHS says the closure is part of a larger reorganization focused on streamlining efforts and eliminating redundancy. Supporters of the office argue that long COVID remains a pressing medical concern, with an estimated 6% of U.S. adults experiencing ongoing symptoms. Critics, however, say the office’s impact was limited and its future unclear amid tightening budget constraints.

This week’s actions follow a wave of cuts across the department. Since February, HHS has canceled more than 250 federal grants, many of them tied to projects focused on vaccine hesitancy, LGBTQ health initiatives, HIV prevention, and research into health disparities. Universities, including Columbia and the University of Virginia, were among the hardest hit.

Columbia University alone lost over $400 million in federal funding as part of a broader HHS investigation into campus anti-Semitism and a reassessment of grants containing diversity, equity, and inclusion components. A spokesperson for HHS declined to say whether any of the canceled grants might be reinstated.

Other terminated grants included:

• $2.4 million to study neurodevelopment biomarkers in “female and gender diverse autism”

• $1.2 million for obesity research

• Nearly $500,000 for cervical cancer screening

• Multiple HIV-related research programs totaling tens of millions of dollars

Some state health departments are still assessing the local impact of the COVID funding pullback. Officials in Mississippi and Utah said they are reviewing the decision and working to determine next steps.

So far, HHS appears to have made the largest cuts of any federal agency during this budget cycle. The Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk, has taken credit for driving many of the reforms across HHS, in coordination with Secretary Kennedy.

“We are, with Elon’s help, eliminating the redundancy. We are streamlining our department,” Kennedy said during a cabinet meeting this week.

The administration has emphasized that the intent is not simply to slash budgets, but to reprioritize spending away from temporary pandemic-era programs and toward long-term health issues, particularly chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.

While the CDC has noted that hundreds of Americans still die from COVID-related illness each week, and long COVID continues to affect millions, federal officials argue the emergency phase is over, and the focus must now shift.

What comes next will depend on how much of the cut funding is reallocated—and whether states and health agencies can adjust after years of reliance on temporary federal support.

But one thing is now clear: the era of unlimited COVID spending is officially coming to a close.