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NYTimes Survey: 723 Epidemiologists on When and How the U.S. Can Fully Return to Normal
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Covid-19 cases are decreasing in the United States, and masks are no longer required everywhere, but the pandemic is not over — and won’t be until younger children can also be vaccinated, epidemiologists said in a new survey by The New York Times.
The true end of the pandemic — when it becomes safer to return to most activities without precautions — will arrive once at least 70 percent of Americans of all ages are vaccinated, they said. Adolescents just began receiving vaccines this week, and those for children younger than 12 are not yet approved.
“Children are key to ending the pandemic,” said David Celentano, the chair of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University and one of the 723 epidemiologists who participated in the survey this month.
They are optimistic this will happen, even if not as quickly as many Americans hope. In five years, they expect Covid-19 will be more like the flu, circulating at a lower rate and with some deaths every year — but no longer a public health crisis necessitating lockdowns.
“It feels like there is a light at the end of the tunnel,” said Gretchen Bandoli, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego. “We have the tools we need to get there, and it feels within reach.”
Yet it’s still unclear if the United States can reach that level of vaccination. And even as cases decline domestically, the global toll of Covid-19 is rising in parts of the world that have not had the same access to vaccines.
Already, Americans are beginning to be able to do things they had been advised to avoid for the last 14 months. The Biden administration said Thursday that fully vaccinated people no longer needed to wear masks in most places. (The survey was conducted over the last two weeks, before the mask announcement.)
In the survey, about 85 percent of respondents said it was likely that Americans would be able to safely gather for Fourth of July barbecues this summer, as President Biden has called for. A slightly higher share said it was likely that schools would be able to be fully open in the fall, and that families would be able to safely gather indoors for the winter holidays. ...
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