The Washington Post cited Anthony Fauci saying US infection rates are still at a ‘precarious level’, on April 26, 2021. But CNN Health quoted certain US officials saying we are getting closer to the end game the previous day. What could it mean to concerned citizens if the US is not actually getting closer to the COVID finish line? What exactly does the term mean?
Does It Mean Things are Getting Back to Normal?
The COVID finish line crept into US vernacular, although there seems little consensus as to what it actually implies. Miriam-Webster dictionary defines ‘normal’ as confirming to a type, standard, or regular pattern. But we don’t really know what that mode going to be like, even though phrase is catching on.
‘The reality is that we’re not going to know when we’ve crossed that mythical finish line’. That’s the opinion of emergency physician Megan Ranney, director of Brown-Lifespan Center for Digital Health. He was speaking to CNN Health when he added ‘It’s not like we’re going to suddenly be done.’ It’s rather going to be ‘a gradual return to normal.’
Getting Closer to the COVID Finish Line On a Dial
Emergency physician and CNN medical analyst Dr. Leana Wen prefers to think of the process differently. It’s ‘more like a dial and not like an on-off switch,’ she explains. ‘That’s how we should have thought about reopening in the first place.’
To her, the process comprises several stages, beginning when we are individually vaccinated. We will be getting closer to the COVID finish line by then, but we will still need to mask until most of the rest of the population vaccinates too.
We come closer to the finish line with every completed vaccination, says Megan Ranney. But what’s holding us back is the threat of vaccine hesitation among many. It can better to have the vaccine, than to avoid taking it for fear of the low risk of getting a blood clot, say many infectious disease experts.
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