Biden still chose his words poorly if that's indeed what he meant. Yes, the pandemic is better under control and we have more tools at our disposal to fight it, but we're still very much in a pandemic since the disease is affecting a large number of people across the globe. Not enough to be in an emergency situation, but pandemics don't require emergency situations to exist.
Ok, so we're going to argue about what pandemic means? Quick search says:
===================================
pandemic
1 of 2
pan·dem·ic
pan-ˈde-mik
1
: occurring over a wide geographic area (such as multiple countries or continents) and typically affecting a significant proportion of the
population
: characterized by very widespread growth or extent
: EPIDEMIC entry 1 sense 3
pandemic
2 of 2
1
: an outbreak of a disease that occurs over a wide geographic area (such as multiple countries or continents) and typically affects a significant proportion of the population
: a pandemic outbreak of a disease
2
: an outbreak or product of sudden rapid spread, growth, or development
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Adjective fits your interpretation, noun fits mine.
My issue with what Biden said, is that people will see "the pandemic is over" and that will be the end of it. Biden really should've echoed what the WHO said by saying the end is in sight and that we're getting close to the end since that is likely true at this moment. Although, we've heard we are getting close to the end more than once now and the end ended up being nowhere in sight.
I agree that some people will read only a limited amount. Oh well, everyone has a right to be stupid. He did echo what the WHO said, he just went further to call the pandemic "over". And I think that's fair, because I think the pandemic response is over (and has been for a bit).
I'm not sure what the take rate is on the updated booster shot yet, but purely going off one data point that is my place of employment, it doesn't seem very good.
From an emergency perspective, it matters that the booster is available, not quite so much whether the uptake on it is huge. A lot of people got omicron.
I'm sure there will be more data in a couple of weeks to see if that's the case everywhere though. Since the original vaccine and booster are likely not providing much, if any, protection against the Omicron variants it's like the country (and the world) are mostly unvaccinated at this point.
A lot of people got omicron.
All it takes is one mutation and the cases explode again. Also, with more at-home testing and people just not bothering to test, we're getting fewer samples to map the evolution of the virus.
As for separating the pandemics, that's not a bad idea. While Omicron and pre-Omicron are from the same virus, their impacts were different.
Yea, I think that might be a worthwhile way to look at it, and I think a new mutation that makes cases explode again would again fit the pandemic description. It might help focus people on responding to mutation instead of just saying "I've already gotten covid immunity". Sure, it helps, but the mutation could prove to be its own emergency health situation to cope with.
It's not all upside to claiming that the pandemic is not over. Being overly cautious and insisting the people continue to take precautions long after they have made their own decision to stop only serves to get them to stop listening. To be taken seriously for the next one, we should be publicly calling an end to the pandemic as it occurs. Then maybe when a dangerous mutation shows up ready to sweep through, we can get some eyebrows raised when we call it a new pandemic.
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