“Having COVID in the environment and in the world is probably here to stay, but COVID as we’re dealing with it now is not here to stay,” Biden said Friday when asked if he thought COVID-19 would be in people’s lives forever. “We are going to be able to control this. The new normal is not going to be what it is now. It’s going to be better.”

The nation is seeing record high cases as the highly contagious omicron strain rips through communities. The United States recorded about 1 million new cases a day this week — more than any other country in the world has reported. Hospitalization rates have also reached new heights, overwhelming medical providers, though death rates have remained stable so far.