US President Joe Biden, who is fully vaccinated and received two boosters, tested positive for COVID-19 on July 21, 2022, and was "experiencing very mild symptoms," according to the White House.. Photo: AFP

Demonstrators gather outside of the White House on September 19, 2022 to call for urgent governmental action for the millions of people living with long-term COVID, and other infection-associated, complex-chronic diseases. Photo: AFP

As US President Joe Biden's declaration of the end of the pandemic faces waves of backlash, Chinese observers believe that the COVID-19 issue in the US has become a political tool for a partisan battle instead of a public health issue concerning people's lives, which highlighted that the Biden administration's decision-making is extremely irresponsible.

Observers warned that Biden's remarks may lead to a further relaxation of COVID-19 restrictions in the US, which may put more Americans and even the world at the risk of resurgence of a new wave in the fall and winter. And for the US, the failure in response to COVID-19 and monkeypox indicated a complete malfunction of American public health system as well as its political system, observers said. 

In an interview with CBS's "60 Minutes" on Sunday night, Biden said that "the pandemic is over." "If you notice, no one's wearing masks. Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape," he said, according to the New York Times.

As COVID-19 is still killing hundreds of Americans every day, Biden's claim almost immediately sparked outrage in the US. 

The New York Times said a day after Biden made the remarks, the backlash was "in full swing" as patients said the president was being "insensitive at best," and some public health experts said his words were "at odds with the science."

A group of protesters suffering from long-term COVID-19 symptoms demonstrated outside of the White House on Monday. They laid on the sidewalk holding signs saying that the pandemic is not over, and "millions of us are being disabled from post-viral disease, and we need urgent action from our government," the Hill reported.

Chinese health experts believe the pandemic in the US is nowhere near the end, urging the Biden administration to take precautions for the possible surge of cases in the fall instead of loosening restrictions.  

Chen Xi, an assistant professor of public health at Yale University, told the Global Times on Tuesday that the pandemic in the US is not over, as an average of some 400 people die of COVID-19 every day and about 30,000 COVID-19 patients are hospitalized currently in the country.

These figures are much higher than those in flu season. 

Many people with underlying diseases, such as immune deficiency, cancer, as well as some elderly people have not gotten adequate protection from vaccines, and declaring that the pandemic is over at this point would put these populations at risk, Chen said. 

Top US infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said Monday that the US is not where it needs to be regarding the coronavirus pandemic, saying, "we have only 67 percent of our population vaccinated and only one-half of those have received a single boost," the Hill reported. 

At a time when US health funding is not sufficient to deal with subsequent threats, including testing for new variants and booster injections, Biden's remarks could hinder the administration from getting more COVID-19 funding from Congress, Chen said. 

According to CNN,  the White House has pushed for $22.5 billion for additional COVID-19 aid, but some Republicans said on Monday that Biden's remarks "essentially shuts the door on the slim chances of more money getting approved." 

Experts said that Biden's extremely irresponsible remarks may lead to a spike in cases and deaths in the US in the fall and winter when COVID-19 intertwines with the flu. In addition, the lack of prevention and control measures coupled with loosening border control in the US puts the world at risk of a resurgence of COVID-19.  

The pandemic globally is not over yet, although the WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said last week, adding that the end of the pandemic is now in sight. But he explained that the world is "not there yet." He urged all governments to seize the opportunity to take key actions in order to "finish the race."

Hundreds of deaths a day in the US indicated that the virus is still spreading fast, and it cannot be the end of the epidemic, Yang Zhanqiu, deputy director of the pathogen biology department at Wuhan University, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

The pressing task for the US and other Western countries is to take effective measures to avoid the further deterioration of the epidemic as Christmas, New Year, and other major Western festivals facilitate a large flow of people, which will definitely lead to a spike in cases around the world, Yang said. 

It's true that many Americans do not wear masks in public places, but Yang said masks can effectively help reduce the risk of infection by preventing droplets from spreading. The virus will never disappear, the upcoming new variants will only be more infectious than current ones, Yang said. 

US national flags fly at half-staff at the Washington Monument to mourn 1 million American lives lost to COVID-19, Washington, D.C., the United States, May 12, 2022. Photo: Xinhua

Political stunt 
Lü Xiang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Tuesday that as a weak president, Biden's declaration had apparent political motives, as he attempted to show the government's achievement and boost morale of the Democratic Party before the midterm elections. 

CNN said that Biden clearly sees ending the pandemic as a key to his presidency and at least partially blames it for how voters perceive him.

After struggling with low approval rating for over a year, Biden has seen his approval slowly rise in recent polling. But US News said that the polling "hardly ensures" a Democratic victory since Americans are still concerned about inflation, crime and other areas where polling shows Republicans are more trusted to handle the issues. 

Instead of making decisions based on scientific assessment from health departments, Biden bluntly announced the end of the pandemic which was absolutely unscientific and extremely irresponsible, Lü said, noting that it reveals the chaotic management of the Biden administration as well as reckless decision-making. 

While in Washington, his declaration was attacked by Republicans, and Lü believes the COVID-19 response has become a political tool for a partisan battle. 

What's more, the Biden administration has also been denounced for slow and inadequate monkeypox response, and Chinese analysts said the failure in US government's response to infectious diseases reveals the malfunction of American health and political system. 

In an opinion piece, the Hill said that the Biden administration's response to monkeypox has failed to learn the lesson of COVID-19 response, which highlighted America's inability to respond to large-scale disease outbreaks, and solving them will require bipartisan cooperation.

Biden said the pandemic is over, but is that so? Graphic: GT