Fact Check: Did Joe Biden Say Pandemic Was Over in Summer 2022?

Three years since the national outbreak of COVID-19 across the U.S., the White House has continued to declare public health emergencies in response to the disease.

President Joe Biden's administration extended government intervention powers related to COVID-19 in January, a sign the U.S. still believes the disease remains powerful and dangerous.

However, a recent comment made by Republican Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders suggested that the president already believed the worst was over, declaring the pandemic's end around half a year ago.

The Claim

A tweet from Huckabee Sanders, posted on January 25, 2023, claimed that Biden had declared the pandemic over in the summer of 2022.

The tweet, viewed more than 274,000 times, stated: "Last summer, Joe Biden said the pandemic was over.

"Today, his press secretary said COVID is not over."

The Facts

The Biden Administration's recent extension of the COVID-19 public health emergency status, signed for 90 days, is the same action it has taken every 90 days since January 2020.

However, according to Politico, this may be the last time it happens with "senior Biden officials...targeting an end to the emergency designation for Covid as soon as Spring," according to unnamed sources "with knowledge of the matter."

The status gives federal authorities the power under the U.S. Code to address outbreaks of disease through granting of funds, reassignment of staff, and waiving of sanctions to provide public health services additional support and freedoms.

However, though the White House still believes this emergency power is necessary, the president toward the end of summer 2022 did indeed say the pandemic was over.

In an interview at the Detroit Auto Show for 60 Minutes, filmed September 18, 2022, the president made an optimistic assessment claiming the situation was changing.

"The pandemic is over," Biden said. "We still have a problem with COVID. We're still doing a lotta work on it. It's—but the pandemic is over. If you notice, no one's wearing masks. Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape. And so I think it's changing. And I think this is a perfect example of it."

Huckabee Sanders, who recently reversed the Arkansas governor's official position on the constitutionality of her state's ban on mask mandates, was also correct that on January 24, 2022, the White House told reporters that COVID wasn't over (although the term "pandemic" was not mentioned).

"COVID isn't over. We've been very clear about that," said White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. "Hundreds of Americans are dying every day, and cases are increasing right now, today. That's why we take commonsense measures, like COVID testing ahead of large indoor gatherings at the White House."

COVID-19 policy remains a hot topic among U.S. politicians, particularly since Republicans took majority control of the House of Representatives.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), whose personal Twitter account was banned for spreading misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccines, was recently appointed to a new panel by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) exploring the origins of the pandemic.

The panel, McCarthy said, would "finally get answers to the Covid origins and the federal government's gain of function research that contributed to the pandemic."

Newsweek has contacted the White House for comment.

The Ruling

True.

In a CBS interview in September 2022, president Biden did say, as Sarah Huckabee Sanders claimed, that the pandemic was over. The president remarked that "no one" was wearing masks and that "everybody seems to be in pretty good shape."

FACT CHECK BY Newsweek's Fact Check team