On September 18th, the President implied that the COVID pandemic is over in the U.S., although accepting “We still have a problem.” Subsequently White House and Administration spokespersons issued modifications, walk-backs and restatements.

It is undeniable that the COVID situation, as measured by incident cases, hospitalizations and fatalities, has declined from previous peaks but there is still a need for “a lotta work on it”, to quote the President.

The Director-General of the World Health Organization, Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, stated on September 14th, “We have never been in a better position to end the pandemic, but we are not there yet, although the end is in sight.”

The U.S. has recorded 95.7 million diagnosed cases of COVID caused by a range of variants.  Documented fatalities have attained 1,053,840 to early September but excess mortality attributed to COVID is estimated at 1,177,083 deaths.  As of the second week in September, the CDC counted 13,783 hospitalizations due to COVID with 3,681 patients in ICU.  For the week ending September 10th, there were 831 fatalities attributed directly to COVID, 75 percent of which were in patients over 65 years of age.

The U.S. has deployed 843 million does of COVID vaccine of which 612 million have been administered.  Of our population of 332 million, 69 percent have received the two primary vaccines, 109 million have received a first booster and 24 million a second booster. 

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