US President Joe Biden said on Friday as America grapples with skyrocketing cases that COVID-19 "as we are dealing with it now is not here to stay."
"But having Covid in the environment -- here and in the world -- is probably here to stay," he told reporters after a speech on the economy at the White House.
"We have so many more tools developed, and continue to develop, that can contain Covid and other strains of Covid," the president added.
His administration has been criticized for failing to meet demand for Covid testing kits during the holiday season, which coincided with the rapid spread of the Omicron variant.
The United States has the world's highest Covid death toll, at more than 830,000. And it registered over one million new cases on Monday, its highest daily case rate since the beginning of the pandemic.
"We're going to be able to control this," Biden said.
"The new normal is not going to be what it is now; it's going to be better."
