CDC Pulling Back $11.4B in COVID Pandemic Funding

ATLANTA — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week informed state and community health departments, as well as a host of international health organizations, that they won’t be receiving approximately $11.4 billion in funding previously allocated to their pandemic-related programs.

The bad news, that awardees began receiving on Monday, is part of an administration-wide effort to rein in federal spending, and eliminate grants and other programs that are no longer needed.

Among the funding being withdrawn is money that was either already being spent or was earmarked for COVID testing, vaccination, the hiring of community health care workers and initiatives aimed at addressing COVID’s disparate impact on ethnic minorities and rural communities.

“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,” according to a statement released by the Department of Health and Human Services. 

“HHS is prioritizing funding projects that will deliver on President Trump’s mandate to address our chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy Again,” the statement concluded.

The claw-back of funding is the latest of a series of actions under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to refocus the federal government’s health-related priorities.

Among the entities being effected by the termination of the grants in the Illinois Department of Public Health, which had been counting on receiving $125 million in federal funding to support its “prevention and control of emerging infectious disease” program.

Also impacted are 97 local public health departments, staff officials said.

“This decision to terminate already awarded federal funding will cause immeasurable harm and disruption to the health and safety of the people of Illinois and generate larger expenses in the longer run,” said Gov. JB Pritzker in a statement.

“The State of Illinois will do everything in our power to restore this vital federal funding and continue to invest in common sense public health solutions to keep our state safe and healthy,” he added.

State officials noted that the funding had been awarded to Illinois through 14 separate budget lines in the bipartisan CARES Act, which was passed by Congress during the first Trump Administration.

In addition to rescinding $125 million in previously approved investments, state officials said the Trump Administration is also blocking $324 million for future work to prevent and treat infectious disease in Illinois.

As originally passed, the bill would have provided up to $449 million in direct long-term support for the state’s disease surveillance and vaccination activities.

Now that the public health crisis is over, officials with the state public health department said they had planned to rely on the $125 million to strengthen COVID-19, measles and H5N1 disease surveillance, and to prepare for future potential pandemics.

In order to do that work, they said, they already allocated the targeted funds for technology to track the spread of diseases, invest in labs that test samples for infectious diseases, surveil wastewater, build the public health workforce, and strengthen local health departments.

“While Illinois Department of Public Health has been preparing for anticipated federal budget cuts, the termination of this awarded funding will have a debilitating impact on our efforts to protect the health of Illinoisans,” said Department Director Dr. Sameer Vohra in a written statement.

“If allowed to stand, this funding cut will set back critical upgrades to our public health labs, technology used to track infectious diseases like H5N1 avian flu and measles, vaccination efforts, and our ongoing work to better prepare for the next public health emergency,” Vohra said.

In a related move, the Trump administration informed staffers that it is closing the department’s long COVID office as part of its ongoing reorganization.

The federal public health emergency related to the pandemic ended on May 11, 2023, though preventing the spread of COVID-19 remained a public health priority for the Biden administration.

“Though the public health emergency is ending … our work to protect the American public will continue,” former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra declared at the time.

Since then, infection from the coronavirus has slowed and, for most, illnesses associated with infection have become much less severe.

However, the COVID page on the CDC’s own website, updated Feb. 25, 2025, continues to state that long COVID, which can cause debilitating medical problems in some cases, “remains a serious public health concern” for millions of Americans.

According to data compiled by the National Institutes of Health, as many as 23 million Americans are currently suffering from long COVID to some degree.

Dan can be reached at [email protected] and @DanMcCue