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Biden pushes new normal amid worries about next covid surge -- and who is left behind
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/03/21/biden-pandemic-plan-ba2-surge/But for many other Americans, there was palpable relief on Feb. 25, when the CDC shifted the vast majority of U.S. counties from red, signaling high transmission, to green, meaning low levels of disease and no need to mask indoors.
The changes were based on a new framework designed to protect communities from the worst, a surge so big that it might overwhelm local hospitals, while being less disruptive to everyday life, amid falling case counts and a desire among many for relief from masking and other public health measures. But some worry it leaves the country unprepared for another wave and abandons those who are most vulnerable.
The plan’s adequacy may soon be tested if the United States sees the same sharp increase in coronavirus cases now bedeviling Europe, a possibility federal officials are anticipating. If such increases lead some communities to be reclassified as red, it remains an open question whether state and local officials would be willing to reinstate controversial indoor masking guidelines. There may be little political appetite for such measures, even in Democratic areas.
For President Biden and his administration, which has vowed to “follow the science,” navigating a return to normalcy in the third year of the pandemic is an inherently messy and uncertain process. Federal officials have developed new metrics, based on previous coronavirus waves, that will anticipate the burden of severe disease on local hospitals by incorporating county data on covid-19 hospital admissions, as well as case counts. But there are no distinct steps to a new pandemic normal, only judgment calls that will have to be continuously adjusted, depending on how an unpredictable virus mutates, said several senior administration officials and outside experts.
The changes were based on a new framework designed to protect communities from the worst, a surge so big that it might overwhelm local hospitals, while being less disruptive to everyday life, amid falling case counts and a desire among many for relief from masking and other public health measures. But some worry it leaves the country unprepared for another wave and abandons those who are most vulnerable.
The plan’s adequacy may soon be tested if the United States sees the same sharp increase in coronavirus cases now bedeviling Europe, a possibility federal officials are anticipating. If such increases lead some communities to be reclassified as red, it remains an open question whether state and local officials would be willing to reinstate controversial indoor masking guidelines. There may be little political appetite for such measures, even in Democratic areas.
For President Biden and his administration, which has vowed to “follow the science,” navigating a return to normalcy in the third year of the pandemic is an inherently messy and uncertain process. Federal officials have developed new metrics, based on previous coronavirus waves, that will anticipate the burden of severe disease on local hospitals by incorporating county data on covid-19 hospital admissions, as well as case counts. But there are no distinct steps to a new pandemic normal, only judgment calls that will have to be continuously adjusted, depending on how an unpredictable virus mutates, said several senior administration officials and outside experts.
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