For the past two years, the nation's opioid crisis has been deemed a national public health emergency. That ended last week, temporarily, because no one in Health and Human Services bothered to renew it when it lapsed. They're calling it a "clerical error."
It is not merely a clerical error. It is another example of an administration more concerned with things like nicknaming HHS the "Department of Life" in pandering to the forced birthers than in doing the regular, important business of running an agency effectively. "Life" in Azar's estimation apparently doesn't apply to the people dying from accidental opioid overdoses, a more likely way to die than in a car accident as of 2019.
It's also a reflection on the incompetence of this administration that, as Politico reports, "officials and public health experts say that the emergency declaration's effect on the opioid crisis has been minimal." Where as a public health emergency declaration can mean additional resources and funding and research to respond to an emergency, this one seemed more to be aimed at giving Trump a talking point on the issue, on that he talks about a lot.