The U.S. na­tion­al emer­gency to re­spond to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic end­ed Mon­day as Pres­i­dent Joe Biden signed a bi­par­ti­san con­gres­sion­al res­o­lu­tion to bring it to a close af­ter three years — weeks be­fore it was set to ex­pire along­side a sep­a­rate pub­lic health emer­gency.

The na­tion­al emer­gency al­lowed the gov­ern­ment to take sweep­ing steps to re­spond to the virus and sup­port the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic, health and wel­fare sys­tems. Some of the emer­gency mea­sures have al­ready been suc­cess­ful­ly wound-down, while oth­ers are still be­ing phased out. The pub­lic health emer­gency — it un­der­pins tough im­mi­gra­tion re­stric­tions at the U.S.-Mex­i­co bor­der — is set to ex­pire on May 11.

The White House is­sued a one-line state­ment Mon­day say­ing Biden had signed the mea­sure be­hind closed doors, af­ter hav­ing pub­licly op­posed the res­o­lu­tion though not to the point of is­su­ing a ve­to. More than 197 De­moc­rats in the House vot­ed against it when the GOP-con­trolled cham­ber passed it in Feb­ru­ary. Last month, as the mea­sure passed the Sen­ate by a 68-23 vote, Biden let law­mak­ers know he would sign it.

The ad­min­is­tra­tion said once it be­came clear that Con­gress was mov­ing to speed up the end of the na­tion­al emer­gency it worked to ex­pe­dite agency prepa­ra­tions for a re­turn to nor­mal pro­ce­dures. Among the changes: The De­part­ment of Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment’s COVID-19 mort­gage for­bear­ance pro­gram is set to end at the end of May, and the De­part­ment of Vet­er­ans Af­fairs is now re­turn­ing to a re­quire­ment for in-home vis­its to de­ter­mine el­i­gi­bil­i­ty for care­giv­er as­sis­tance.

Leg­is­la­tors last year did ex­tend for an­oth­er two years tele­health flex­i­bil­i­ties that were in­tro­duced as COVID-19 hit, lead­ing health care sys­tems around the coun­try to reg­u­lar­ly de­liv­er care by smart­phone or com­put­er.

More than 1.13 mil­lion peo­ple in the U.S. have died from COVID-19 over the last three years, ac­cord­ing to the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion, in­clud­ing 1,773 peo­ple in the week end­ing April 5.

Then-Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s Health and Hu­man Ser­vices Sec­re­tary Alex Azar first de­clared a pub­lic health emer­gency on Jan. 31, 2020, and Trump de­clared the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic a na­tion­al emer­gency that March. The emer­gen­cies have been re­peat­ed­ly ex­tend­ed by Biden since he took of­fice in Jan­u­ary 2021, and he broad­ened the use of emer­gency pow­ers af­ter en­ter­ing the White House.

By ZEKE MILLER

WASH­ING­TON (AP)