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Hey, good morning, Playbookers. I'm Rogumnavalin. It's Tuesday. Here's a question. Is the pandemic over?

It's your Politico Playbook Daily briefing.

Is the pandemic over?

The pandemic is over. We still have a problem with COVID. We're still doing a lot of work on it.

It's what the pandemic is over. With four offhand words, President Joe Biden touched off a firestorm during his Sunday 60 Minutes interview.

And the White House cleanup attempt was swift. Among those manning the spin machine was Biden's chief medical advisor Anthony Fauci,

who told Politico's Aaron Bonko

on Monday night that what he really meant is that the very severe stage of the pandemic of having

3,000 deaths a day, that stage is no longer present, but that people should not be cavalier

that were out of the woods. Indeed, Biden and his administration have been striving for months

to project a new sense of normal for the country, that COVID no longer controls our lives,

as he put it in a March 30th speech. And yet, a summary declaration that the pandemic has

could put carried implications that Biden did not seem to fathom as he walked the floor of the

Detroit Auto Show with Scott Pelly. For one, more than 300 Americans are still dying from

the disease each day as the nation's public health establishment works to convince Americans

to get the new Bivalent booster shot ahead of a possible winter wave. The remarks also did nothing to convince Republicans to back an administration request for $22 billion

in new COVID relief funding, a fight that will come to ahead in the coming days.

As Senator John Cornyn told CNN's Monu Raju on Monday, if it's over, then I wouldn't suspect

they need any more money.

It's worth noting the implications go beyond dollars and cents.

Senator Richard Burr, top Republican on the Senate Help Committee, sent a letter to Biden,

...