Accounting for all these metrics, public health experts say there is some epidemiological basis behind the recent talk of “moving forward beyond the pandemic,” as Murphy said.
“There’s absolutely science to what’s being suggested right now. I think that much is clear,” said Neal Goldstein, assistant research professor of epidemiology at the Drexel University Dornsife School of Public Health. “The tension that you have here is there’s always going to be some risk. There’s no such thing as zero risk in terms of COVID right now, because of how widespread the virus is in the community.
Jennifer Horney, founding director of the University of Delaware’s epidemiology program, noted that since the highly transmissible omicron variant was first detected in the United States in December, experts have been wondering whether it would hasten the start of the endemic stage.“I do think we’re probably moving a bit too quickly,” Horney said. While average new daily cases across the countrysince the omicron peak, “they’ve dropped 90% from extraordinarily high levels.
However, public health leaders and experts, including Horney, say case and hospitalization numbers aren’t the only factor at play. The country now has plentiful vaccinations and other medical interventions, they say, making this stage of the pandemic different. For those who are up-to-date on vaccination, and are not otherwise vulnerable,
New stage = it’s all but over. Time to get back to something much closer to normal.
Any reason you completely left Philly's retention of the mask mandate out of this article completely?
Except in Philly apparently—where we will continue to have mask mandates like it’s 2020