When the federal Covid-19 public health emergency ends on May 11, it will be the end of an era for the American health system.

For more than three years, in a nation where patients usually pay more for health care than residents of any other high-income country, tests and vaccines were available to all Americans for free. Treatment was free for many people, too, including those without insurance.

Health care providers adapted on the fly, moving services to the computer or the phone in order to continue treating patients. Hospitals got an important infusion of government funding at a time when, at least at first, they were forced to cancel many of their surgeries and other services in order to handle surges of patients as the coronavirus spread.

But the Biden administration announced Monday that the public health emergency will end in May, which will stop some of those provisions. Others, extended by Congress recently, will have a limited life span unless lawmakers decide to act again.

American health care is, like everything else, getting back to normal — which means it will be harder for some people to access the health care they need.