Trump administration says it will pull back billions in COVID funding
from local health departments
[March 26, 2025]
By LAURA UNGAR
Federal health officials said Tuesday they are pulling back $11.4
billion in COVID-19-related funds for state and local public health
departments and other health organizations throughout the nation.
“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,” the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services said in a statement.
The statement said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
expects to recover the money beginning 30 days after termination
notices, which began being sent out on Monday.
Officials said the money was largely used for COVID-19 testing,
vaccination and global projects as well as community health workers
responding to COVID and a program established in 2021 to address COVID
health disparities among high-risk and underserved patients, including
those in minority populations. The move was first reported by NBC News.
Lori Freeman, CEO of the National Association of County & City Health
Officials, said much of the funding was set to end soon anyway. “It’s
ending in the next six months,” she said. “There’s no reason — why
rescind it now? It’s just cruel and unusual behavior.”
In a related move, more than two dozen COVID-related research grants
funded by the National Institutes of Health have been canceled. Earlier
this month, the Trump administration shut down ordering from
covidtest.gov, the site where Americans could have COVID-19 tests
delivered to their mailboxes for no charge.
Although the COVID federal public health emergency has ended, the virus
is still killing Americans: 458 people per week on average have died
from COVID over the past four weeks, according to CDC data.
HHS wouldn't provide many details about how the federal government
expects to recover the money from what it called “impacted recipients.”
But HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said in an email: “The $11.4 billion is
undisbursed funds remaining.”
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 Freeman said her understanding is
that state health departments already had the COVID money.
“The funding was authorized by Congress, was
appropriated by Congress, and it was out the door, basically, into
the hands of the grantees" — states, she said, which decide how to
distribute it locally.
Some of the COVID money is used to address other public health
issues, Freeman added. For example, wastewater surveillance that
began during COVID became important for detecting other diseases,
too.
“It was being used in significant ways to track flu and patterns of
new disease and emerging diseases — and even more recently with the
measles outbreak,” Freeman said.
Under both the first Trump administration and the Biden
administration, billions of dollars was allocated for COVID response
through legislation, including a COVID relief bill and the American
Rescue Plan Act.
At this point, it's unclear exactly how health departments will be
affected by the pullback of funds. But some were starting to look at
what it might mean for them. In Washington state, for example,
health officials were notified that more than $125 million in COVID-related
funding has been immediately terminated. They are “assessing the
impact” of the actions, they said.
In Los Angeles County, health officials said they could lose more
than $80 million in core funding for vaccinations and other
services. “Much of this funding supports disease surveillance,
public health lab services, outbreak investigations, infection
control activities at healthcare facilities and data transparency,”
a department official wrote in an email.
——
Associated Press reporters Mike Stobbe in New York, JoNel Aleccia in
Temecula, California, Carla K. Johnson in Seattle and Amanda Seitz
in Washington, D.C. contributed to this story.
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