US doctors on pandemic: “It’s not over!”

As of: 09/20/2022 7:29 p.m

US doctors and health experts contradict President Biden: he had declared the corona pandemic over. They accuse him of campaign calculations and point to hundreds of deaths every day.

By Ralf Borchard, ARD Studio Washington

Is the pandemic over? No, say numerous health experts in the USA and criticize US President Joe Biden. “400 deaths a day in the US? Do we want to be satisfied with that?” asks William Hanage, an epidemiologist at Harvard University. “We have to recognize that regardless of whether President Biden says the pandemic is over, we still have a big problem,” he told NPR radio.

And Michael Osterholm from the University of Minnesota adds: “We have to vaccinate as many people as possible in this country with the new booster substances. When the pandemic is declared over, many people ask themselves: Why do I still need the vaccination? “

State funds depend on state of emergency

The criticism comes from many parts of the USA, especially from doctors who continue to deal with corona infections on a daily basis. “I flinched when the president said that,” says David Pate, a Boise, Idaho-based medical doctor who was a long-time director at the city’s St. Luke Clinic. “I can’t say I’m shocked, after all, Biden is a politician and we have important congressional elections coming up.” He could understand why politicians wanted to calm down, sound optimistic and say it was over. “It’s not over!”

Pate further emphasized on local television that the nationwide health emergency related to the corona pandemic still applies. This is particularly important for the state funds that are used to finance tests and vaccinations, for example.

The Biden administration has requested $22 billion in additional funding in the US Congress to fight Covid. These funds have not yet been approved, and Biden’s Democrats also need the approval of parts of the opposition Republicans. This is likely to become much more difficult after Biden said the pandemic was over.

“Steering Through New Normal”

US Secretary of Health Xavier Becerra found himself swimming when he was asked about Biden’s statement on CBS television: “The President reflected what many Americans think. That we no longer necessarily have to wear masks, that we can take care of our children and the elderly have protected and protect as best we can. We have learned to deal with Covid.”

Formally, a pandemic – by definition a cross-border problem – cannot be declared over by a single president or head of government anyway, but only by the World Health Organization (WHO). So far, the WHO has not done this.

The epidemiologist Robert Wachter from the University of California still has some understanding of Biden’s statement: “We have to recognize that we are in a new phase,” he says. The threat is not over, but has become significantly smaller. There are the means to “protect us well all in all”.

Wachter says: “It is understandable that we are refraining from this alarm state of the past few years and are trying to steer ourselves through a new normality.”

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