Biden’s pandemic declaration differs from CDC, WHO
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(NewsNation) — In a Sunday interview on “60 Minutes,” President Joe Biden declared the COVID pandemic “over.”
“We still have a problem with COVID,” Biden said. “We’re still doing a lot of work on it. But the pandemic is over.”
However, both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization (WHO) have yet to make declarations of such a measure.
On its website, the CDC still refers to the COVID-19 outbreak as a pandemic and although the WHO’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, revealed global COVID deaths are the lowest they’ve been since March 2020, he said the end of COVID’s pandemic phase is “in sight.”
According to recent CDC data, COVID deaths in the U.S. are down 75% and cases are down 90% since the record-high Omicron wave in January.
Meanwhile, Biden’s messaging appears out of step with the White House’s $22 billion dollar emergency request to Congress to deal with COVID-19, although most of it is earmarked for research and planning for a possible fall surge, next-generation vaccines and treatments and for helping other countries with their COVID-19 response.
“We still must be aware of how unusual this virus is and continues to be in its ability to evolve into new variants,” presidential health adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci said Monday at an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“We are much better off now, for a number of reasons that you mentioned. But we are not where we need to be if we’re going to be able to quote ‘live with the virus’ because we know we’re not going to eradicate it,” Fauci continued.
Fauci went on to explain how the COVID picture is much improved, but added we still need to do better. Infectious disease expert Dr. Amesh Adalja of Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security also points out whether a disease is a pandemic or not doesn’t mean it’s not important.
“That doesn’t mean that we forget about it; it doesn’t mean that it’s still not a priority to get our control of the virus, and even better, and to reduce the mortality rates even lower,” Adalja said, speaking on NewsNation’s “Rush Hour” on Monday.