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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowIndiana’s Republican-dominated Legislature will reconvene late this month to consider ending the statewide COVID-19 public health emergency order that has been in place since March 2020, legislative leaders said Saturday.
Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray, R-Martinsville, and House Speaker Todd Huston, R-Fishers, said lawmakers will return to the Statehouse for a one-day session on Nov. 29 and take up legislation that would allow the emergency order to expire.
The announcement comes despite a recent rise in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in Indiana and other Midwestern states after those statistics improved in Indiana since the state’s last surge peaked in mid-September.
Indiana’s statewide mask mandate and business or crowd restrictions were lifted months ago.
But many conservatives have criticized Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb for continuing to extend the monthly public health order, which he has renewed 20 times. Holcomb has signaled that the 30-day renewal he signed in late October might be the last.
The governor faces a Dec. 1 deadline for extending the health emergency order and an accompanying executive order, which, among a handful of provisions, has allowed the state health commissioner to issue a standing doctor’s order allowing pharmacists to administer COVID-19 vaccinations for children ages 5 to 11.
Holcomb said Tuesday that he was talking with legislative leaders about allowing the public health emergency to expire if lawmakers approved steps that would allow the state to keep receiving enhanced federal funding for Medicaid expenses and food assistance programs, and also maintain the childhood vaccination authorization.
Holcomb said such actions “would allow us to wind it down responsibly.”
Bray and Huston said in a joint statement that lawmakers would consider those concerns during their one-day session, which will come more than a month ahead of the Jan. 4 scheduled start of the Legislature’s new session.
“There are only a few key components of the executive order that remain in place, including measures that help vulnerable Hoosiers. Before the emergency expires, we’ll return for a one-day session to pass legislation addressing these issues,” Huston said in the statement.
Public testimony on the legislation will be heard on Tuesday in the House Chamber starting at 10:30 a.m.
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I look forward to the COVID numbers in the state of Indiana finding out that things are “over”, especially since Indiana has the sixth worst rate of spread in the entire United States right now. I’m sure the virus is just one Todd Rokita press release away from entirely going away, and I look forward to the future in which our state legislators, most of whom have no background in medicine whatsoever and wouldn’t know facts if they tripped over them, take their rightful place making medical decisions for the state of Indiana.
https://covidactnow.org/us/indiana-in/?s=25741485
Indiana is a hot spot. Perhaps the plan is survival of the fittest. Time for more another mask order.
Ending the emergency is a reasonable step, as many of the significant unknowns have become known: how it is spread, treated, prevented, etc. People have the tools / knowledge how to reasonably protect themselves; whether they avail themselves of it, or should now only be govts concern if it threatens healthcare capacity, which seems highly unlikely at this point.
Now that ages 5 and up can have a reasonably minimal chance of contracting covid, on top of the reasonably minimal chance of them having a serious case in the first place, it does seem the right time for govt to officially handoff responsibility to individual decision making instead of emergency restrictions – as had started many months ago.
“Statewide hospitalizations due to COVID-19 have risen more than 31% over the past two weeks amid a recent escalation in cases, according to the latest statistics from the Indiana State Department of Health.”
https://www.ibj.com/articles/indiana-covid-19-hospitalizations-up-31-over-past-two-weeks-as-cases-rise
Let’s exacerbate the Covid surge!
Can’t wait for the Legislature to thrust its insanity on Hoosiers!