USA Yesterday
New Cases: 41,206
New Deaths: 1,597
We're on track to hit a million dead next month.
This thing is not going away easy.
WaPo: (pay wall)
Opinion: This is what ‘living with covid’ might look like
Two years ago, long before vaccines and boosters, we cautioned that it would be reckless to go back to normal too soon. Now, with the omicron variant passing, with widespread vaccine and natural immunity, with greater knowledge about the virus and how to mitigate it, a new normal is in sight. But a smart group of public health experts has a warning to be heeded: The new normal will be different, and we must prepare for it.
In a report released Monday and titled “Getting to and Sustaining the Next Normal: A Roadmap for Living with Covid,” the experts caution that the United States is still in the grip of the pandemic. With 330 million people, they say the U.S. transition to the “next normal” will be when direct mortality from major respiratory illnesses is 165 deaths per day and 1,150 per week; the death toll from covid-19 going into this month was 10 times higher. And they caution that a new, concerning variant could emerge. At the same time, they suggest that the death toll will decline sharply from the disaster of the past two years, thanks to vaccine and natural immunity.
If the outlook is cautiously optimistic, however, the report makes an important plea for policymakers and politicians not to fall back into complacency and inaction, as they have in the past. It comes from two dozen epidemiologists, pharmacologists, virologists, immunologists and policy experts, shepherded by Ezekiel J. Emanuel, vice provost of global initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania.
What needs to be done? A major recommendation is that the United States should build a comprehensive testing and surveillance system for the coronavirus and other respiratory viruses, which does not yet exist in the nation’s patchwork of testing technology and reporting. The report suggests such a system should make rapid tests “both ubiquitous and affordable, which means less than $3 per test,” and swiftly link those who test positive — whether through a PCR or rapid test — to suitable treatment. The experts also suggest building a real-time disease surveillance network that would rely on viral, environmental, genetic, immunological and zoonotic sampling to provide early warning and data about outbreaks. These will be even more useful if linked to a modernized, comprehensive health-data system, which the pandemic showed is desperately needed. Other common-sense suggestions include measures to improve indoor air quality; a strategy to deal with burnout among health-care workers; sustained investment in vaccine and therapeutics research and development; a better understanding of long covid; and improvements on the confusing pandemic communications evident over the past two years.
All of this won’t be easy or cheap. The report calls for an estimated $100 billion investment the first year, about $30 billion for the second and third, and $10 billion to $15 billion annually thereafter. But the economic and other damages of the pandemic were in the trillions. Investing in the future of public health systems to avoid such a disaster in the future would be prudent and farsighted.
In a report released Monday and titled “Getting to and Sustaining the Next Normal: A Roadmap for Living with Covid,” the experts caution that the United States is still in the grip of the pandemic. With 330 million people, they say the U.S. transition to the “next normal” will be when direct mortality from major respiratory illnesses is 165 deaths per day and 1,150 per week; the death toll from covid-19 going into this month was 10 times higher. And they caution that a new, concerning variant could emerge. At the same time, they suggest that the death toll will decline sharply from the disaster of the past two years, thanks to vaccine and natural immunity.
If the outlook is cautiously optimistic, however, the report makes an important plea for policymakers and politicians not to fall back into complacency and inaction, as they have in the past. It comes from two dozen epidemiologists, pharmacologists, virologists, immunologists and policy experts, shepherded by Ezekiel J. Emanuel, vice provost of global initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania.
What needs to be done? A major recommendation is that the United States should build a comprehensive testing and surveillance system for the coronavirus and other respiratory viruses, which does not yet exist in the nation’s patchwork of testing technology and reporting. The report suggests such a system should make rapid tests “both ubiquitous and affordable, which means less than $3 per test,” and swiftly link those who test positive — whether through a PCR or rapid test — to suitable treatment. The experts also suggest building a real-time disease surveillance network that would rely on viral, environmental, genetic, immunological and zoonotic sampling to provide early warning and data about outbreaks. These will be even more useful if linked to a modernized, comprehensive health-data system, which the pandemic showed is desperately needed. Other common-sense suggestions include measures to improve indoor air quality; a strategy to deal with burnout among health-care workers; sustained investment in vaccine and therapeutics research and development; a better understanding of long covid; and improvements on the confusing pandemic communications evident over the past two years.
All of this won’t be easy or cheap. The report calls for an estimated $100 billion investment the first year, about $30 billion for the second and third, and $10 billion to $15 billion annually thereafter. But the economic and other damages of the pandemic were in the trillions. Investing in the future of public health systems to avoid such a disaster in the future would be prudent and farsighted.
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