Will it all end?
That was the question posed to Anthony Fauci, the top medical adviser to President Biden. For months Americans have been asking how much longer will we have to wear masks. When will the sound of a stranger's cough no longer make you fear death?
When will the state of emergency come to a close, to be replaced by something similar to a pre-pandemic normal?
Fauci's answer on Wednesday is unlikely to comfort the impatient or the exhausted, in a reflection of the perilous period the nation is about to enter. The Biden administration's internal update on the Pandemic was sent out on Wednesday and shows that new infections rose by more than 10 percent between Nov. 8 and 15. The number of hospitalizations increased by 5.4 percent. The 4 percent decline in deaths may be due to high vaccination rates and the increasing reliance on therapeutic treatments.
Dr. Anthony Fauci was at a Senate hearing. The images were taken byChip Somodevilla.
The path of the Pandemic in the U.S. tends to be presaged by what happens in parts of Europe. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the fourth wave was hitting the country.
American leaders haven't made the same warnings, but their signals have taken on the tone of caution. Fauci and others used to promote the idea of "herd immunity", a concept that was part of the "hot vax summer" concept. The months ahead will be an uneasy, uncertain slog.
Fauci said they want control. I think there is confusion about what level of control you will accept in its endemicity.
When a virus is no longer spreading at a high level, it becomes endemic. Downgrading the coronaviruses to an endemic pathogen would mean that we will live with it for the foreseeable future, but without the disruptions caused by the Pandemic.
The goal is not as modest as it seems since only one virus has ever been eradicated. If the coronaviruses became endemic, it would be a problem similar to the flu that shows up with the cold weather.
The medical establishment agrees that the U.S. isn't there yet. Andy Slavitt, a top adviser to President Biden, said in a recent Washington Post op-ed that the epidemic is not done yet.
Fauci said on Wednesday that the number of daily infections, hospitalizations and deaths would have to be far, far lower than they are today for the sense of emergency to be lifted. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the nation has an average of nearly 90,000 new cases per day.
Most deaths and hospitalizations would be prevented by vaccination. The Biden administration is in a bind because many of the holdouts are refusers. The president can't do much to bring the end of the Pandemic any closer because of his workplace mandate being the subject of a federal court case. He has tried incentives and impatience, but has been between warnings and hope. The White House has a limited arsenal against what Biden's predecessor called the invisible enemy.
Fauci declined to say what the level should be, but he did say that they wanted to get to the lowest possible level. Fauci had previously said that fewer than 10,000 daily cases would be a sign that the battle had turned. The U.S. hit that benchmark in early July, only to see it undone by the Delta variant in a matter of days.
The months-long fight against the Delta variant has left public health officials wary of making all but the most modest promises. The battle plan for the third year of the Pandemic has led to confusion.
Harvard occupational safety expert Joseph Allen told the Atlantic that we are sleepwalking into policy because we are not setting goals.
The administration's reticence was especially evident on Wednesday, with Fauci doing little to describe an end. He said that when we get to that low level, we will know it.
Nobody seems to know when that will happen. It's hard to imagine that the Pandemic will be over soon, at least in the official accounting.
Dr. Eric Topol, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, told Yahoo News that all data from Europe and the U.S. supports that we are in for another significant wave. It will not be as bad as Nov/Dec 2020.
195 million people have been fully vaccined in the U.S., making for great progress. There will soon be pill forms that are effective in preventing death from COVID-19. It is becoming easier to find rapid tests if you want to.
The weapons could help blunt a winter wave, but are unlikely to make for a coronaviruses-free season, leaving Americans to wonder if the long-promised return will ever come.
A woman wearing a mask passes by a mobile testing van in New York. Brendan McDermid is a reporter for the Associated Press.
Rupali Limaye, a vaccine specialist at the University of Maryland, told Yahoo News that they are in a "watershed moment". She said that the first doses given to adults were not making a lot of gains. She said that the communication was poor on boosters. After the first booster shots were administered, there were intense debates over their efficacy and necessity.
The vaccine for children between the ages of 5 and 11 began earlier this month. There are 28 million children who are eligible to be immunized. The White House is very encouraged by the effort, with an estimated 2.6 million children having been administered a first dose as of Wednesday evening.
If the Biden administration's top medical experts have become cautious in their assertions in recent weeks, it is because the Pandemic has always found a way to confound their expectations.
In March, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky confessed to a feeling of impending doom, but a spring wave never materialized, and she was accused of doomsaying by some.
President Biden declared victory over the coronaviruses on July 4, even as the Delta wave was spreading rapidly across the country. The CDC lifted guidance in late May, but within weeks it came back with the same advice.
Pedestrians wearing face masks walk past a sign in front of a store. Brown/AFP via Wikimedia Commons
The fall was marked by furious political battles over school mask mandates and vaccine requirements, with Republican governors like Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas calling the efficacy of masks into question and celebrating personal freedom at the expense of public health.
The public debate around the Pandemic has been framed by those challenges, potentially contributing to the lack of progress with millions of eligible people unvaccinated, restrictions loosened and winter approaching. There are people who have done the right thing and then find themselves living less and less as they did a year ago.
Boston Children's Hospital epidemiologist John Brownstein recently told ABC News that they are not yet in a position to declare victory on the Pandemic.
The White House is unlikely to celebrate victory over the virus anytime soon. Biden was given to promote the vaccine benchmarks throughout the spring, but now they are not mentioned. Public health officials can't do much more until the Biden workplace mandate takes effect in early January, but vaccinations are still the way out of the epidemic.
Fauci said on Wednesday that we should get as many people as possible to get vaccinations as quickly as possible.
A medical staffer prepares a vaccine at a New York City school. Michael M. Santiago is a photographer.
There are masks that are effective. They are currently recommended by the CDC for vaccine recipients, a guidance that some high-vaccine areas believe they can finally get rid of.
Washington will lift its mask guidance for most indoor settings on Monday, according to the District of Columbia Mayor. The White House said that it would continue to use masking even if the staffers and reporters werevaccinated for months.
Walensky said that 85 percent of American counties were experiencing high transmission, meaning that masks needed to be worn there. She advised moderate or low transmission for several weeks before the mask requirements were released.
Caution may be the easiest position to maintain as winter looms and uncertainties linger, it may be that the Pandemic has led to so many discouragements and disappointments.
President Biden spoke at the White House on July 4 to celebrate Independence Day. The Washington Post has a picture ofDemetrius Freeman.
Fauci, who has been fighting infectious diseases for four decades, first gaining national attention for his work on HIV/AIDS in the 1980s, has sometimes appeared chastened by the coronaviruses, and the nexus of public health, politics and cultural animosity. He talked about the threats his family has received at the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Conservatives have attacked him for his statements on the origins of the epidemic, the need for masking and the vaccine rate to be stopped, painting them as inherently malicious. Fauci may not have much incentive to say when the Pandemic will end because he and others agree that it will be when vaccination increases.
Fauci conceded at Wednesday's briefing that they don't know what the number is. We will know when we get there.
Additional reporting by Jana Winter.
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The Yahoo Immersive Team has created a 3D experience that shows how the Delta variant relates to the national political landscape.
