There’s no denying the dire warnings and restrictions placed on people in public spaces during the height of the pandemic were met with a healthy amount of skepticism and resistance. During a recent 60 Minutes interview, President Biden stated the pandemic is “over.”
His advisors were quick to “clarify” his statements, and Republicans were equally as quick to question whether COVID vaccination mandates for the nation's military and other federally funded programs were valid. Meanwhile, many Americans have been inundated by commercials urging them to get boosters to the vaccinations they’ve already received.
The Newell Normand Show recently invited Dr. Joseph Kanter of the Louisiana Department of Health to how the people should interpret the President’s declaration while also considering what the public health community is trying to get across. Normand told Dr. Kanter the President’s statement about the pandemic being over undercuts the words and work of health professionals.
“I think he is ruining in many respects The credibility of the public health providers in this country by this mixed messaging,” Normand said.
Normand plainly asked Dr. Kanter if he believed the pandemic is over.
“It comes down to what you mean by that. If you mean that the most disruptive phase with closures and orders and disruption is passed us, absolutely no question about that. No question at all, and it has been the case for a number of months now as we’ve talked about before. That doesn’t mean that COVID is gone and this idea that we initially had in the pandemic that we would potentially eradicate the virus is just so far from reality right now,” said Dr. Kanter.
Over several interviews during the peak and now tapering off of the COVID, Normand raised the question to Dr. Kanter whether the pandemic was a “pandemic of the unvaccinated”. In light of the Presidents more relaxed approach to the pandemic, Normand posed that question again to Dr. Kanter.
“The phrase pandemic of the unvaccinated I do think that was true at an earlier part. It’s obviously not true now we’ve got, 95% of the state who have been vaccinated or infected or both. About 85% of the state in Louisiana has been infected so that creates a different situation than when we were mostly naïve or when 30% or 40% of the population had been infected. We all know that the efficacy of these vaccines and boosters wanes overtime that’s why they introduce an updated one. So, I agree the phrase pandemic of the unvaccinated while it might’ve been true at an earlier point is clearly not true anymore,” said Kanter.
While Dr. Kanter admits the “disruption” period of the pandemic is over and many communities will not be reverting back to health restrictions, he did say COVID remains a serious health concern.
“We still have the daily death average for the country. It’s about 350 deaths a day. That’s getting really closer to what a really bad flu season would be but not for a few months, just kind of year around right now. But in that regard, it’s still causing a lot of morbidity and mortality, still requires dedicated resources, still will be at least top 10 if not top five causes of death probably for every state this year. So, it requires a lot of attention,” said Dr. Kanter.
Listen to the full conversation:
