Affective Education

The death drive of the pandemic was a dark hour for higher education. After it had raged on for three years, there was still no clarity as to when it would end. When US President Biden announced on national television that “the pandemic is over,” the next morning he was reminded that he does not have the authority to make such a decision. Just because many acted at the time as if the pandemic was over, the fact remained that people in the US were still becoming sick and dying from COVID-19. As of mid-September 2022—and the time of Biden’s announcement—four- to five-hundred Americans were dying from a pandemic that to date had claimed the lives of over one million in the US—and over 6.5 million worldwide. While the seven-day death average of 491 reported on September 20, 2022 is a far cry from the 3280 reported on January 28, 2021, the issue remained as to what is the minimum number of daily deaths to remove the designation pandemic.