It’s the million dollar question everyone is asking about COVID-19: When will life return to normal? And will the school open this fall?
The answers are all over the map – from Texas and Mississippi governors already declaring their states open and removing mask mandates, to health experts ominously warning that the virus will linger forever.
However, the reality depends a lot on how you define ‘normal’. And if enough Americans stand a chance this summer, it may not be as depressing as you think.
Experts say fall could become the season of a ‘new normal’ in which the world is slowly re-opening and people will reconnect, but with masks, routine testing, and possibly even vaccination cards to enter movie theaters or restaurants.
“It’s going to be so gradual that we probably won’t even notice,” said Howard Markel, a University of Michigan medical historian and pediatrician. “It’s not a light switch or like V-Day – it’s over, you know, we won! It’s not like that.”
So what could derail it all? Infectious disease experts agree that at least 70-85% of the country must become immune to starve the virus. Markel said he 90% prefers a virus that covert.
“It all depends on how many people roll up their sleeves and get the immunization, you see,” Markel told ABC News. So that’s my fear, that’s what keeps me up at night. ‘
Here’s what health experts say could be happening this year:
Spring will be a time of uncertainty and possibly more deaths
The country has come to a standstill with the virus. Even with the national seven-day average falling 74% in a matter of weeks, the US still has an average of 64,000 new cases per day. That average is comparable to last fall, just before the cases exploded during the holiday season.
That stagnated progress means the country is about to enter the season of spring break trips, graduation parties, family vacations and neighborhood gatherings with an already high viral transmission, while a new, more transmittable variety hailing from Britain is expected to be the most dominant strain of the virus in mid-March.
Health experts warn with states like Texas and Mississippi now reopening and lifting mask mandates, there could be one last heartbreaking rise in new cases – followed weeks later by hospitalizations and deaths – just as the country is on the cusp of mass vaccinations.
“I know the idea of relaxing from wearing a mask and returning to daily activities is appealing. But we’re not there yet,” says Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We’ve seen this movie before. When prevention measures like mask mandates are reversed, things go up.”
With fingers crossed, summer will be the season of massive vaccinations
If production can keep up, the US expects to go into June with enough vaccine doses for 300 million Americans. The vaccines will still be limited to adults, with some available for teens 16 and older.
“I think that’s a huge undertaking,” said Simone Wildes, infectious diseases physician at South Shore Health in Massachusetts and a medical officer for ABC News, of the massive rollout of vaccinations.
“But if we get it done, June, July … maybe we can have a decent summer. But it really depends on how things unfold in the coming months, ”she said.
Markel also predicted that by the beginning of July almost all “early accepters” of the vaccine will have been given a chance. At that point, much of the nation might be able to expand their “pod” – slowly.
Markel said he still wouldn’t recommend making an early deposit for an extended family nonrefundable beach house this summer.
Wildes agreed.
“Be flexible that if you know that people will not be vaccinated, if the number of cases increases, especially with the variants, we can cancel those plans,” Wildes said. “There’s nothing wrong with making preliminary plans, but I think we just need to be aware of where things are at that point.”
Depending on how many Americans are vaccinated, falling can become the ‘new normal’
Dr. Anthony Fauci said Thursday that now by “fall, mid fall, early winter” he thinks everyone will go back to work, that the kids will go to school and that dining indoors can hum again.
His prediction follows a White House announcement that a vaccine maker, Johnson & Johnson, could accelerate its offering. But it would still take the summer months to deploy the vaccines.
“By the time we fall into the implementation of the vaccine program, you will see something noticeable towards a return to normalcy and that will most likely be by the end of the year,” said Fauci, the top infectious disease. The country’s expert and chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden.
Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said he prefers to put “normal” in quotation marks because life would probably look very different. For example, online business meetings may be more common than crowded conference rooms “if possible.
“Masks should be one of the last things,” said Schaffner. ‘They’re tricky, they’re boring, but they’re so effective and so easy and so cheap. It wouldn’t be the first things I take off; they would be the last. ‘
But if enough people get vaccinated, he agreed that schools and colleges should be able to open at a low risk this fall and the US could see a better Thanksgiving.
“I expect we will be in this ‘new normal’ by the end of summer and fall, and we can all – I hope – give thanks on Thanksgiving, in a more conventional way, sitting around the table with our family, friends , relatives, masks off and thanks and are delighted that we got through this terrible pandemic and survived it, ”said Schaffner.
Still, every expert interviewed by ABC News described some sort of cautionary wait-and-see attitude. Vaccination hesitation in some Americans remains a concern. And if viral transmission remains high in other countries, the virus can mutate in such a way that it falls away. on the effectiveness of the vaccines – potentially putting even vaccinated people at risk.
“We might come back to some of the things we’re used to, but to say we’re going to get back to normal – it’s not going to be the same,” Wildes said.
“I think it will even be difficult for me to hug people,” she added later.
When it’s all over, no matter how many months or years from now, Markel, who has studied pandemics for thirty years, is sure of one thing: “We’ll forget it all.”
“We’re going on happily,” he said. ‘I’m telling you I’ve studied many pandemics. That’s the end. It’s like amnesia. And I worry about that. ‘