Biden to signal new phase in pandemic as learning to live safely with COVID
ABC News
In his State of the Union address, the president was expected to signal a new phase in COVID in which the nation learns to live with the virus.
President Joe Biden's first State of the Union address will be a remarkable scene: A maskless president speaking to more than 500 invited lawmakers packed cheek-to-jowl in the historic House chamber, also allowed to go without masks so long as they got tested first.
Case numbers and hospitalization levels have plummeted. Three-fourths of U.S. adults are now fully vaccinated with a growing number of people getting boosted. Rapid tests are finally widely available. And life-saving therapeutics including new anti-viral pills are growing in supply.
With such optimism on public display, Biden's address will signal a new phase in the pandemic. It also will be a tacit acknowledgement that the virus, at any moment, could come roaring back to life.
Officials told ABC News that Biden on Tuesday would shy away from any suggestion of "mission accomplished" or even that the virus had morphed into an "endemic" state -- a term reserved to describe a virus that persists but is mostly predictable.
