When President Joe Biden recently took to national television to provide an interview with 60 minutes, his declaration that, “The pandemic is over,” caused a variety of reactions from the citizens of the entire country.
Worldwide there are still over 400,000 cases of coronavirus, with thousands more reported every day.
As these numbers are so high, not relative to the prime of the pandemic, it seems too early to express that we are beyond the clutches of the virus.
Grace Levy, a Communication Studies major at Bucks, is still feeling the pandemic every day.
When asked about how Covid-19 is still affecting her she said, “I live with someone who is severely immunocompromised, so Covid is an everyday worry. I still wear a mask practically everywhere, and although I have been vaccinated, I don’t wear a mask for myself. I mask to protect others and those I live with.”
For people like Levy and her family the pandemic is still very relevant and limiting.
“We still have a problem with COVID,” said Biden.
“We’re still doing a lot of work on it. But the pandemic is over. If you notice, no one’s wearing masks. Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape, and so I think it’s changing, and I think [the Detroit auto show resuming after three years] is a perfect example of it,” continued Biden.
Where many feel Biden is jumping the gun, others who have moved on from coronavirus find Biden’s comments to be a bit too late.
Even some U.S. citizens who voted for president Biden are questioning his logic behind such comments. Some students at Bucks who voted for Biden in the previous election find his narrative confusing and unsupported by statistics.
Doctors all over the world are still very unsure about the virus and, “… even though we know more about it now but there’s still so many things that we may not know,” said Dr. Richard Vu, a physician from Colorado Springs.
When asked about his stance regarding Biden’s credibility from here on out, Kevin Frank, a student at Drexel University said, “As for his credibility and representation I think that this is definitely a big step in hopefully the right direction.”
Frank further clarified, “My roommate is from Istanbul in Turkey and he keeps talking about how their city is so open and how his country is very densely populated. I think that other leaders should still keep in mind their people and not base their actions solely on the actions from the U.S.”
Putting other countries into consideration in reference to Biden’s comments it would make sense for the United States to be first to announce said comments because other nations are still secure with respect to their Covid guidelines.
With the United States being the global superpower it has been for decades, other countries may take Biden’s interview as a go-ahead to reduce some of their regulations.
Opinions of people everywhere differ regarding the president’s bold statement, which may have lasting effects when it comes to the next presidential election.