Washington, September 20 (RHC)-- U.S. President Joe Biden says "the pandemic is over," even though the country continues to contend with mounting coronavirus fatalities.  Biden acknowledged the US still has a "problem" with the virus that has killed more than one million Americans.

"We still have a problem with COVID. We're still doing a lotta work on it. 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."  Biden made the remarks said during an interview on the sidelines of the Detroit auto show, an event which drew thousands of visitors.

Nearly 400 Americans a day continue to die from COVID-19 in the United States despite widely available medications and vaccinations, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Biden spent more than two weeks isolated in the White House after two bouts with COVID-19, starting in July.  His wife Jill also contracted the virus in August. Biden has said the mild cases were a testament to the improvements in care during his presidency.

Biden has asked Congress for $22.4 billion more in funding to prepare for a potential fall case surge.  The U.S. government still designates COVID-19 a Public Health Emergency and the World Health Organization says it remains a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.

There were about 65,000 new COVID cases reported each day in the U.S. over the past two weeks, data from Johns Hopkins University shows.  Across the United States, about 400 people are dying every day from COVID-19.

The CDC’s forecasts say that new hospitalizations and deaths will hold steady for the next month, although official case counts are far from representative of true levels of transmission.  More than 95 million Americans have contracted the virus and over one million people in the country died from the coronavirus since the COVID crisis began in 2020.