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The emergency declaration, in conjunction with the administration's prior designation of COVID-19 as a public health emergency on January 31, frees up to $50 billion in federal disaster relief funding, Trump said, and provides the HHS secretary with more authority to waive some Medicare, Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) requirements. (Cohrs, 3/13)

Every state in the United States — and virtually every country in the world — has laws conferring this legal authority. They're some of the oldest on the books, stemming from the plagues of past centuries that devastated Europe and were reworked again after the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic and the more recent Ebola outbreak. "There's no question that states have very broad powers to do rather extraordinary things in public health emergencies," professor Wendy Parmet, an expert on public health law at Northeastern University, says. (Williams, 3/13)

Trump declared an emergency under the Stafford Act, the same 1988 law presidents use to declare disaster areas after storms and other natural disasters. That frees up billions of dollars in Federal Emergency Management Agency funds to confront the coronavirus. Trump said about $50 billion is available (other estimates, including one from the White House after the president spoke, have pegged the figure at closer to $40 billion). "This pandemic has the potential to cause severe consequences for our country's national and economic security," the president wrote in a letter announcing the decision late Friday. "It is therefore critical that we deploy all powers and authorities available to the federal government to provide needed relief." (Fritze, 3/13)

The administration is also directing nursing homes to temporarily restrict visitors and nonessential personnel with a few exceptions, such as end-of-life situations, said Seema Verma, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, at the press conference. “We fully appreciate that this measure represents a severe trial for residents of nursing homes and those who love them. But we are doing what we must to protect our vulnerable elderly,” said Verma. (Lim and McLeod, 3/13)

The national emergency declaration President Donald Trump delivered today increases states’ authority to help low-income residents get testing and treatment for the new coronavirus. Trump’s declaration signals to governors that they can now apply to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for exemptions from some of the regulations governing Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. If those requests are granted, it could help governors address the crisis in a variety of ways. (Ollove, 3/13)