Just weeks after declaring the pandemic "over," President Joe Biden has returned to calling Covid a "global health emergency."
He made the statement during an event on Monday aimed at convincing Americans to get up to date with their vaccinations.
"Some of our friends in Congress say we don't need Covid funding," Biden began, "or they say there's really no reason that the government should be paying for it."
"I strongly disagree," he continued, "This is a global health emergency. If we really wanna put Covid behind us, we have to keep up the fight together."
During a briefing with Covid czar Dr. Ashish Jha, a reporter asked what Biden meant, given that just one month ago he declared that "the pandemic is over."
"What the president described today, what I'm talking about today, is that Covid continues to kill several hundred Americans every day," Jha replied, "and so whatever terminology we use, the bottom line is that Covid continues to be a substantial challenge problem."
"It's more than just terminology, isn't it," the reporter shot back, "there's a message in saying that the pandemic is over that just doesn't seem, at least to my ears, to jive with saying Covid is still a problem."
Jha pointed out that while Biden did say that the pandemic was over, he also made clear that Covid was still a problem.
During the interview in question, Biden told 60 Minutes host Scott Pelley that "the pandemic is over. We still have a problem with Covid. We're still doing a lotta work on it. It's— 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."
At the time, the president's statements were quickly clarified by the White House, and Dr. Fauci. Speaking on behalf of the former, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre suggested that Biden had said what he said because "he was walking through the Detroit Car Show … and he was looking around."
Reporters also asked Jha about the Biden administration's Covid funding request, and why American taxpayers should be paying $4 billion to tackle the virus overseas.
"You heard today from the President, global health emergency," Jha replied, "therefore it needs a global response."
He went on to point out that every major variant of Covid that has entered the United States has originated in a foreign nation, therefore in order to protect Americans, the virus needs to be stamped out around the globe.
"The notion that we can just wall ourselves off and not be affected by what's happening in the rest of the world is naive, it's just not how transmissible viruses like this work," he added.
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