Joe Biden Says COVID-19 Pandemic Is Officially ‘Over’

President Joe Biden told Scott Pelley in his 60 Minutes interview on Sunday that the Covid pandemic is “over.” 

Biden and Pelley were walking through Huntington Place, the site of this year’s Detroit Auto Show, when the president was asked if the pandemic is over. “The pandemic is over,” Biden responded. “We still have a problem with COVID. We’re still doing a lotta 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 this is a perfect example of it.”

Two administration officials told Politico that saying the pandemic is over wasn’t part of Biden’s planned remarks heading into his 60 Minutes interview. 

His declaration comes less than a week after Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, struck an optimistic tone about the state of the Covid pandemic, but wouldn’t go as far as to say it is over. “Last week, the number of weekly reported deaths from Covid-19 was the lowest since March 2020,” Ghebreyesus said, per CNN. “We have never been in a better position to end the pandemic. We’re not there yet, but the end is in sight.” 

According to data collected by Johns Hopkins, there were 2.2 million cases and over 13,600 deaths in the United States due to Covid this past month.