It’s the million-dollar question everyone is asking about COVID-19: when will life return to normal? And will the school be open this fall?
The answers are all over the map: from Texas and Mississippi governors declaring their states already open and lifting mask warrants, to health experts warning in a disastrous way that the virus will always persist.
The reality, however, depends a lot on how you define “normal”. And, if there are enough Americans to take a shot this summer, it may not be as depressing as you think.
Experts say autumn could become the season of a “new normal” in which the world slowly reopens and people will reconnect, but with masks, routine testing and possibly even vaccine cards for allow them to enter movie theaters or restaurants.
“It’s going to be so gradual, we probably won’t even notice it,” said Howard Markel, a University of Michigan medical historian and pediatrician. “It’s not a light switch or like V-Day, like it’s over, we 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 needs to be immunized to starve to death. Markel said he favors 90% with such a stealthy virus.
“It all depends on how many people roll up their sleeves and get vaccinated,” Markel told ABC News. “So that’s my fear, that’s what keeps me awake at night.”
Here’s what health experts say could happen this year:
Spring will be a time of uncertainty and possibly more deaths
The country is stuck with the virus. Even with the seven-day national average down 74% in a matter of weeks, the United States continues to average 64,000 new cases a day. This average is at the height of last fall just before the cases erupted in the holiday season.
This slow progress means the country is about to enter the spring holiday holiday season, graduation parties, family vacations and neighborhood gatherings with already high viral transmission, although a new, more transmissible variant is expected. native to Britain becomes the most dominant strain of the virus in mid-March.
Health experts warn that states like Texas and Mississippi are reopening now and lifting mask mandates; there could be a last heartbreaking increase in new cases – followed weeks later by hospitalizations and deaths – just as the nation is at the pinnacle of mass vaccines.
“I know the idea of relaxing and going back to daily activities is appealing. But we’re not there yet,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We’ve seen this film before. When preventative measures like mask warrants are withdrawn, the cases increase.”
With fingers crossed, summer becomes the time of mass vaccinations
If production can continue, the United States expects to advance in June with enough vaccine doses for 300 million Americans. Vaccines will still be limited to adults, with some supplies available for teens over the age of 16.
“I think this is a huge undertaking,” said Simone Wildes, an infectious disease physician at South Shore Health in Massachusetts and a medical contributor to ABC News, of the launch of the mass vaccination.
“But if we get it, in June, July … we may be able to have a decent summer. But it depends on how things unfold in the coming months,” he said.
Markel also predicted that by early July, almost every “first acceptor” of the vaccine will have had a shot. At this point, much of the nation may be able to expand its “pod” –– slowly.
Markel said he would not yet recommend leaving an early deposit at a non-refundable beach house with extended family this summer.
Wildes agreed.
“Be flexible if, if you know people are not vaccinated, if there is an increase in the number of cases, particularly with variants, we can cancel those plans,” Wildes said. “There’s nothing wrong with making interim plans, but I think we just have to keep in mind where things are at that particular point.”
Depending on how many Americans get vaccinated, the fall could become the “new normal.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci said Thursday that he now thinks “in the fall, mid-fall, early winter” that everyone could go back to work, that the kids will be at school, and that the indoor dining rooms will be humming again. .
His prediction follows the White House announcement that a vaccine maker, Johnson & Johnson, would be able to speed up its supply. But it would still take the summer months to roll out the vaccines.
“When we get to fall with the implementation of the vaccine program, you will see something noticeable in the direction of returning to normalcy and you are likely to get there by the end of the year,” said Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease 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 now prefers to put “normal” in quotes because life would probably look very different. Online business meetings, for example, may be more common than “full” conference rooms if possible.
“Masks should be one of the last things,” Schaffner said. “They’re a nuisance, they’re crazy, but they’re so effective, so easy and so cheap. They wouldn’t be the first things I take off; they would be the last.”
But if enough people are vaccinated, he agreed that schools and colleges should be able to open at low risk this fall and that the United States could see a brighter Thanksgiving.
“My expectation is that we will enter this‘ new normal ’in late summer and fall, and we all (I hope) give Thanksgiving, in a more conventional way, sitting around the table with our family, friends, family, with free masks, give thanks and rejoice that we have gone through this terrible pandemic and survived, ”Schaffner said.
However, all the experts interviewed by ABC News described a kind of precautionary “wait and see” approach. The hesitation of the vaccine among some Americans remains a concern. And if viral transmission in other countries remains high, the virus could mutate so that it is eliminated by the effectiveness of vaccines, potentially putting even vaccinated people at risk.
“We could go back to some of the things we’re used to, but to say we’re going back to normal, it won’t be the same,” Wildes said.
“I think it will even cost me to hug people,” he added later.
When it’s all over, no matter how many months or years pass, Markel, who has been studying pandemic for 30 years, is sure of one thing: “We’ll forget everything.”
“We will continue on our good path,” he said. “I tell you, I’ve studied a lot of pandemics. That’s the end. It’s like an amnesia. And that’s what worries me.”