Vox Sentences - End of a pandemic era

The national Covid-19 emergencies will expire in May; French protests over proposed pension changes intensify.

Tonight's Sentences was written by Jariel Arvin.

Why the Covid-19 emergencies are ending

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

• The Biden administration is ending the Covid-19 national and public health emergencies on May 11. [The Hill / Joseph Choi]
  

• The announcement comes amid new House Republican measures that seek to immediately lift the emergency declarations. [New York Times / Sharon LaFraniere and Noah Weiland]

• However, the White House argues ending the measures when the House GOP wants would cause chaos in the health system and at the border. [Axios / Andrew Solender and Maya Goldman]
• The declaration of an emergency allowed the government to provide millions of free Covid-19 tests and vaccines and temporarily offer expanded health care benefits for poor Americans. [CNN / Phil Mattingly, Jeremy Diamond, and Tami Luhby]
• However, many of those protections expired last year after Congress refused to fund additional pandemic relief. When the emergencies expire, coronavirus vaccines and treatments could become more expensive. [Associated Press / Zeke Miller and Amanda Seitz]
• It will likely also mean the end of Title 42, a Trump administration policy that allows the US to reject asylum seekers at the southern border due to the public health emergency. [Politico / Adam Cancryn]

📍 If you read just one story

Vox’s Rachel DuRose explains what the world can learn from China’s “zero-Covid” lockdowns. [Vox / Rachel DuRose]

France protests pension reforms

• Over a million people took to the streets of France Tuesday to protest against changing the retirement age from 62 to 64. [BBC / Hugh Schofield and Paul Kirby]
• Marchers forced major transport disruptions and school closures in a second round of action coordinated by unions and opposition parties. [CNN / Pierre Bairin and Hanna Ziady]
• Polling indicates the majority of the French public is against the changes, but President Emmanuel Macron is vowing to move forward. [France 24]
• The government says changes will ensure the health of the pension system and align retirement policy with neighboring countries. [Guardian / Angelique Chrisafis]

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Embattled Republican Rep. George Santos announced he’s stepping down from the House science and business committees. [Vox / Ben Jacobs]

• Police are seeking help identifying a suspect who may be involved with the disappearance of two emperor tamarin monkeys from the Dallas Zoo. [CNN / Andi Babineau and Elizabeth Wolfe]
• The death toll from a suicide bombing inside a Pakistan mosque rose to at least 100 Tuesday; only three of the victims weren’t police. [Reuters / Jibran Ahmad and Asif Shahzad]
• On Tuesday, video was released of Donald Trump repeatedly pleading the Fifth during an August deposition in New York’s fraud investigation. [CBS News / Graham Kates]

"People will have to start paying some money for things they didn’t have to pay for during the emergency. That’s the main thing people will start to notice."

[Jen Kates, senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation, on the end of national Covid-19 emergencies / CNN]

The police killing of Tyre Nichols

Memphis braced for an explosive reaction to footage of the deadly police beating. It never came. Wendi Thomas, founder and publisher of the nonprofit newsroom MLK50, wasn’t surprised: “I know this city.”

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