(Tim Lauer / Flickr Creative Commons)

As of last week, over one million people in the United States have died from COVID-19 and 500 people each day are dying from the virus.

Despite those numbers, many say the pandemic is over and Thursday the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changed many of its recommendations around COVID-19.

The Wall Street Journal reports that according to the CDC, schools and workplaces don’t have to screen healthy people and students, the six-foot distancing rule has been dropped and unvaccinated people don’t have to quarantine after exposure to COVID.

This comes as kids are heading back to school in Idaho.

So is the COVID-19 pandemic over? Has the virus or the science changed? Dr. David Pate, Former CEO of St Luke's Health System and a current member of Idaho's Coronavirus Task Force joined Idaho Matters to break this down.