The country wants to know when the pandemic will end
Unfortunately, nobody really knows. President Biden’s strategy to stop the spread of the coronavirus relies on vaccinations, and he laid out a plan earlier this month to use the full power of the federal government to mandate shots.
Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security: “We are vaccinating at a fairly high rate now, so I think that we could possibly expect to be in the 60s in terms of percentage by that time (may be a little bit higher if an emergency use authorization for children between 5 and 11 is issued next month).”
Joseph Allen, director of the healthy buildings program at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health: “I don’t think it’s very useful to look at one number for the country as a whole and here’s why: We know two of the most important risk factors for covid are age and vaccination status, but this one number doesn’t capture the vast differences we see across the country. … We’re past the point where a one-size-fits-all approach works for the entire country.”
Carlos del Rio, professor of medicine and global health at Emory University: “It all depends if the mandates are ruled as legal. If that is the case, another 50 million or so may be vaccinated, which will get us to close to 80 percent of the U.S. population vaccinated by December 31.”
Shira Doron, infectious-disease physician at Tufts Medical Center: “It partly depends on when and whether the vaccine is approved for children, and what the uptake is. The White House has stated that the president's plan to mandate vaccines for workers in companies with at least 100 employees covers two-thirds of Americans. That should make a pretty big dent.”
Monica Gandhi, professor of medicine who studies infectious diseases at the University of California San Francisco: “I am hoping we can get to at least 70 percent [fully] vaccinated by the end of the year with the expansion of vaccine mandates. That may be lofty, but countries with at least 70 percent vaccination rates hit by the delta variant did so much better than we in terms of severe illness.”
Adalja: “There is not a one-size-fits-all timeline. For me, since I’ve been fully vaccinated, I have returned to every pre-pandemic activity available.”
Allen: “I’m vaccinated, in my mid-40s, and generally healthy, so I feel very comfortable getting back to the things I used to do before I was vaccinated: I’ve taken long flights, played indoor sports, worked in my office, had vaccinated friends over the house without masks, went to a family reunion, danced under the tent at an outdoor wedding."
Del Rio: “Life is much more normal now than what it was one year ago. I am still anxious going to restaurants for indoor dining and have not gone to a movie but have gone to a concert and to the U.S. Open and felt safe as, at the concert, everyone was vaccinated and masked, and at the U.S. Open everyone vaccinated.”
Doron: “I live in a household where everyone is vaccinated and in very good health, so I choose my activities based on whether they bring meaning and joy to my life. I gather with friends and I eat indoors, but I avoid close interactions with strangers whose vaccination status I do not know. If I lived with someone elderly or otherwise vulnerable, I would make different choices.”
Gandhi: “I am not fearful of severe disease with my fully vaccinated status and have a high risk tolerance, but I want to avoid even mild breakthroughs as a health-care worker as I am around vulnerable patients. So, I avoided indoor dining during the delta surge in San Francisco until vaccine passports were established, and then I returned to indoor dining only then.”
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