WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) — Governors from across the country are calling on President Joe Biden to help them move the country beyond the pandemic.
“You can’t move away from a virus that’s still there. You can’t control that,” Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R-Ark.) said.
Hutchinson urged the Biden administration to offer guidance, on the best way to live with the virus.
“We need to have the guidelines very clear as to how you actually, structurally move from the pandemic state of things to an endemic,” Hutchinson said.
Hutchinson called for a new way to measure the impact of the virus, such as looking at the rate of hospitalizations, instead of a focus on case numbers. Gov. Phil Murphy (D-N.J.) agreed.
“What is the road from pandemic to endemic look like? How do we keep score?” Murphy said.
Biden says there is a lot of work to do to make getting back to normal a reality.
“We’ve got a way to go on that in my view, but we’re moving,” the president said.
The president says health standards need to stay consistent across the board. He called on governors to enact policies that help keep kids in class.
“We’re gonna try like the devil to keep schools open,” Biden said.
Hutchinson says he’s ready to work with the president and his administration to find the best path forward.
“We want to partner with the administration and be able to move beyond the pandemic and we’ve got to do that as a state and a nation,” Hutchinson said.
