Atlantic Monthly’s Joe Pinsker spoke with U.S. medical experts to predict when people will return to normal Life in the post-Epidemic era. The experts believe it will be 2022 before the weather turns warm and people can largely return to their pre-epidemic lives.
The New Crown epidemic is finally nearing its end, but the timeline still seems to change daily before it actually reaches the finish line, with updates on virus variants, vaccine distribution and other important variables pushing the finish line back or forward from Time to time – when will we be able to return to our old lives again?
Outbreaks are difficult to predict accurately, but we have enough information to make some confident guesses. One effective way to think about the epidemic is to take it season by season. Simply put, life this spring will not be much different from last year, but summer will miraculously be close to normal, the next fall and winter may see continued improvement or a mild regression, after which we are basically sure we can return to pre-epidemic living conditions.
Here we predict in some detail what Americans can probably expect their daily lives to look like in the next four seasons.
Spring 2021: Still an unknown quantity
In most cases, daily life in the coming months will be far from normal without the epidemic. “Normal” is a difficult word to define, as many Americans will have to go to work or will have to choose to eat out, travel, and do all sorts of things that others avoid. Overall, what people couldn’t do in the past year, they may still not be able to do this spring.
The number of people vaccinated in the spring may not be enough to sustain a return to normal levels for the community as a whole. In fact, experts are concerned that the outbreak could get worse in the near future because variants of the virus are more contagious or vaccine-resistant than the original version and have already begun to circulate in the United States. The damage caused by these variants is unclear, as my colleague Robinson Meyer wrote in an article published earlier this month:-“March through May is a mystery.”
The good news, however, is that even with these variants, existing vaccines appear to reduce the risk of serious infection with New Coronavirus, meaning that more and more people will be protected as vaccination efforts continue. Vaccines can change an individual’s risk statistics. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s School of Public health, told me that in another month or so, if there is no spike in cases of the Variant virus and he and his friends are vaccinated, he may feel comfortable going to a friend’s house for a drink and not having to wear a mask indoors. He says, “As we move into late spring, things like small gatherings of vaccinated people are, I think, very possible.”
Summer 2021: Life approaches normal
Whatever happens in the spring, there should be will be a noticeable difference in the summer compared to what Americans have experienced so far. As my colleague James Hamblin wrote last week, “In most of the United States, this summer will probably feel like …… ‘normal’ or even a ‘fresh start ‘”
Andrew Neumer, a professor of public health at the University of California, Irvine, told me, “Barring some really crazy variants, I expect this summer to be a lot like the summer of 2019.” Based on the decline in cases and hospitalizations over the past few weeks, he thinks life will be close to normal as soon as May.
Other experts I consulted were not as optimistic, but they generally agreed that widespread vaccination during June and September, combined with a warmer climate, may make many activities relatively safe, including gathering indoors with friends and Family, riding public transportation, eating at work, inside restaurants, and traveling domestically (whether for work, visiting loved ones, or vacation).
The safest way to gradually resume these activities is for people to gradually move from smaller, private social venues (such as friends’ homes) to larger, public venues (such as restaurants), which is how many people may feel most comfortable. Emily Oster, an economist at Brown University, predicts that “people will slowly expand their social sphere and gradually recover their social networks.” Oster writes about everyday epidemic decisions in her newsletter, ParentData.
For example, Ashish, dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, is looking forward to hosting 20 or so friends for a barbecue in his backyard on the Fourth of July, with everyone vaccinated and no one needing to wear a mask. He imagines himself eating comfortably in an indoor restaurant later this summer, provided it’s not packed and well ventilated.
Still, this summer has its limitations. The experts I spoke with don’t expect indoor concerts, high-attendance sporting events or extensive international travel.
However, they do expect Americans to appropriately relax their policies on wearing masks and maintaining social distance in other settings. I think when people are vaccinated, they will gradually lower their standards of preparedness, and from a public health perspective, it will be safer at that point,” said Jennifer Dodd, professor of demography and population health at Oxford University and chief scientific officer of the new Dear Epidemic Education campaign. ” Noemer, a professor of public health at the University of California, Irvine, predicts that wearing a mask in public will still be necessary until every American is vaccinated, at which point he believes the requirement to wear a mask can be eliminated.
Even if these precautions are no longer strictly necessary, many people may still insist on them, such as wearing masks on public transportation or at the grocery store. Brown University economist Oster believes that while certain activities have become relatively safe by summer, many people may not be willing to resume them until late in the year or even later.
Fall/Winter 2021-2022: Cautiously optimistic
Even though this summer feels like the epidemic is over, it is more likely to be only a temporary respite.
Most Americans should be vaccinated by fall, but the virus could make a comeback in the colder months. Says Neumer, “The situation won’t be as bad as it was this winter, but I don’t know exactly how bad it’s going to be, whether it’s going to be bad or only a few people will be infected.”
Thankfully, the latter scenario seems more likely, and there will be a further return to normalcy, with indoor concerts even likely to resume. Dodd, professor of demography and population health at Oxford University, said, “It may still be a bit early in the summer for large numbers of tourists, and I think autumn is an important turning point for tourism.”
This scenario could lead to sporadic outbreaks of the virus, but the vaccine should significantly reduce the likelihood that infected people will end up in the hospital and may also reduce the likelihood that they will spread the virus.
The other scenario, while unlikely, is troubling: cases could climb again, either because a particular mutation ends up evading the available vaccine or because the infection spikes in the unvaccinated population.
Even after a good summer, an increase in cases may require a return to many of the precautions taken early in the outbreak, even if a full-blown lockdown is not required. Said Neumeier, “I don’t mean that we’re definitely going to be back to wearing masks and working from Home and all the precautions that we hate that will make a comeback, but if it does come back, it won’t be in the summer, it should be in the fall.”
Thankfully, however, if the stubborn mutant viruses do spread, the new vaccine should be able to tame them relatively quickly. Adjusting existing vaccine formulations will only take a few months, meaning the disruption to daily life won’t be as long as Americans once experienced.
Spring and summer 2022: back to normal
Fortunately, after next winter, the experts’ prediction is simple: when the weather turns warm in 2022, people’s lives should be normal, meeting any conditions for a normal life after the outbreak. The virus will still be there, but it’s unlikely to give people a severe case of neoconiosis; it will become like the flu, spreading mainly in the colder months, and some people will still die from neoconiosis, but the virus won’t get out of hand again. In the meantime, Americans should be able to go about doing most, if not all, of the things they missed in 2020 and 2021 without having to wear a mask or worry about it.
Of course, with more than a year to go before this fantastic time, some unforeseen obstacles could delay the return of normal life. Ashish says he can’t imagine what those obstacles will be. After spending a year predicting how bad the epidemic might be, he can finally look forward to a future where there is no longer any disaster to imagine.
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