Biden Says COVID-19 Here to Stay But New Normal ‘Does Not Have to Be’

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - COVID-19 is likely to stay but the so-called new normal does not have to be given the existing and developing tools to fight the coronavirus, President Joe Biden said on Friday.

"Having COVID-19 in the environment here, in the world, is probably here to stay. But COVID-19, as we’re dealing with it now, is not here to stay. The new normal doesn’t have to be. We have so many more tools we’re developing and will continue to develop that can contain COVID-19 and other strains of COVID-19," Biden said.

The US president said recovery statistics from the pandemic, as well as testing for the virus, were both markedly higher than a year ago, but government measures will lead to things returning to normal.

"We still have problems but 90% of the schools are open," Biden said. "And you know how we're dealing with testing. We've had 300 million tests per month so far; that's an even 10 million tests a day. In addition to that, we’re in the process of ordering 500,000 new tests. So we're going to be able to control this. The new normal is not going to be what it is now. It's going to be better," he said.

The United States saw roughly 1 million new coronavirus infections daily at the start of this week and hundreds of thousands of cases per day since, including nearly 800,000 on Thursday.

Health officials have said 95% of the new cases were from the coronavirus Omicron variant. However, health officials have also said the Omicron cases are mild and there have been no deaths reported from this variant.