President Joe Biden claimed the COVID-19 pandemic was over while admitting the US still has problems with the coronavirus during a “60 Minutes” segment that aired Sunday on CBS.
While touring the North American International Auto Show in Detroit with Biden, CBS correspondent Scott Kelley asked the president if the pandemic was over, given the return of in-person events and the lack of requirements of masking
“The pandemic is over,” Biden replied. “We still have a problem with COVID. We’re still working hard on it … but the pandemic is over.”
“If you notice, no one is wearing masks. Everyone seems to be in very good shape. And so I think it’s changing. And I think this is a perfect example of that,” the president added.
President’s claims about end of pandemic largely overshadowed by recent US COVID-19 data
In the past month, 2.2 million new infections have been reported in the US, with 13,606 deaths, according to John Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. According to the New York Times COVID-19 trackerthe US averages 465 deaths per day.
Last week, the head of the World Health Organization told a United Nations briefing on COVID that the end of the global pandemic was “in sight.”
“We are not there yet. But the end is in sight,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. he said in a virtual press conference.
Biden battled COVID-19 july and kept trying positive weeks after contracting the virus.
first lady Jill Biden also contracted COVID-19 in late August in a “rebound” case.
Biden said in January that COVID-19 is “here to stay,” but offered optimism about how the virus will be treated in the future.
“Having COVID in the environment and in the world is probably here to stay, but COVID as we’re dealing with it now is not here to stay,” Biden said at the time. “We will be able to control this. The new normal will not be what it is now. It will be better.”
