President Joe Biden both acknowledged and denied the coronavirus was likely “here to stay” in a series of contradictory remarks on Friday.
“No, I don’t think COVID is here to stay,” Biden said to reporters. “Having COVID in the environment here and in the world is probably here to stay. But COVID as we’re dealing with it now is not here to stay.”
Biden spoke to reporters on Friday after a White House speech on the disappointing jobs numbers in December. The U.S. economy only added 199,000 jobs in December, much lower than the 422,000 jobs estimated by economists.
Biden reminded Americans that the United States had developed more ways to “contain” the virus, but did not address his previous promises to “shut down” and “defeat” the coronavirus.
US President-elect Joe Biden receives the second course of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine on January 11, 2021 at Christiana Hospital in Newark, Delaware. (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
“The new normal does not have to be,” he said. “We have so many more tools we are developing and continue to develop that can contain COVID and other strains of COVID.
Biden urged Americans to have faith in the federal government.
“We’re going to be able to control this,” he said. “The new normal is not what it’s going to be what it is now. It’s going to be better.”