On May 11, the U.S. will no longer officially be in a COVID-19 emergency for the first time since the pandemic began three years ago.

While hundreds of COVID-19 deaths are still reported each day in the U.S. -- adding to a toll of more than 1 million -- public health experts said the Biden administration is likely looking to end the national and public health emergencies related to COVID-19 because the omicron subvariants that are circulating are producing milder disease and the U.S. has high levels of immunity from previous vaccinations or infections.

The threat of the virus has also receded for many Americans, thanks to testing, treatments and vaccines.

Jen Kates, with the nonpartisan nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), called the end of the emergencies "symbolically a big change." But it will also alter systems that people have come to rely on without realizing they were temporary, at the same time that experts say that it's unclear what the future will hold.

MORE: COVID-19 pandemic 'is probably at a transition point,' WHO says
"I think the administration is hoping that we are clearly transitioning into an endemic period, and that the pandemic period is in the past," Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, told ABC News.

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"Now, that said, those of us in infectious diseases and public health are a little nervous. And the reason is, here we are at the end of January predicting what the circumstances will be in May," Schaffner added. "This is a very unpredictable virus."

Here are the biggest impacts of the public health and national emergencies ending, according to experts: