Entering A Cautiously Relaxed Phase Of The Pandemic
Consider This from NPR
NPR
4.2 • 6.2K Ratings
🗓️ 23 February 2022
⏱️ 10 minutes
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Summary
NPR correspondent Rob Stein reports on a new version of the Omicron variant referred to as BA.2. It's been the dominant strain in some countries and it's showing up in the U.S. too.
And NPR correspondent Michaeleen Doucleff discusses whether a fourth booster dose of vaccine may be in our future.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You know those coronavirus maps showing infection rates around the country, the ones that were awash in dark scary colors for the last couple months as the Omicron wave crashed over the US? |
| 0:11.0 | Well, as winter begins to fade, those maps are changing colors. New COVID-19 infections are down more than 60% over the last few weeks. |
| 0:21.0 | Deaths and hospitalization rates are dropping too. And if all this feels a bit familiar, well, here was CDC director Rochelle Wollensky last spring. |
| 0:31.0 | If you are fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic. |
| 0:38.0 | In May of 2021, Wollensky announced that fully vaccinated people no longer had to mask up. |
| 0:44.0 | We have all lungs for this moment, where we can get back to some sense of normalcy. |
| 0:51.0 | At the time, Matt guidance surprised a lot of people. Like Lena Wem, a professor of public health at George Washington University. |
| 0:57.0 | The CDC seems to have gone from one extreme of over caution to another of basically throwing caution out the window. |
| 1:05.0 | That was when last year, but she told NPR that this moment is different. |
| 1:10.0 | Now, the vaccination rate overall is much higher. Children five and older have been able to be vaccinated since November. |
| 1:17.0 | She also said that while Omicron is highly contagious, it proved to be generally milder and has already swept through the country. |
| 1:24.0 | And I think as importantly, there is a recognition that we cannot be in a perpetual state of emergency. |
| 1:32.0 | The CDC has already hinted that future guidance will be more measured. |
| 1:36.0 | Here's Rochelle Wollensky again at the White House COVID briefing last week. |
| 1:39.0 | We want to give people a break from things like mask wearing when these metrics are better, and then have the ability to reach for them again should things worsen. |
| 1:48.0 | You wear it when it's raining, you take it off when it stops raining. |
| 1:51.0 | A sheesh Jad, dean of the School of Public Health at Brown University, says this is the right approach. |
| 1:56.0 | He often uses a raincoat analogy when talking about masks and other COVID precautions. |
| 2:01.0 | And if we think of masks in that way, then yeah, during surges, we should have masks and everybody should be wearing them. |
| 2:08.0 | And then when the surges, we should take off our masks. |
| 2:11.0 | Consider this. The Omicron Surge is fading away. |
| 2:16.0 | So what comes next? A more relaxed chapter of the pandemic, another variant, or some combination of the two? |
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