The social restrictions surrounding COVID-19 in America are far from over, according to a top coronavirus official at Indiana University.
Dr. Aaron Carroll, pediatrician and director of COVID-19 surveillance and mitigation at IU, wrote in a Sept. 15 New York Times opinion piece that, while many Americans are tired of mask mandates and gathering restrictions, flouting those precautions now could have grave consequences in 2021.
Gov. Eric Holcomb just this week lifted occupancy restrictions on bars, restaurants, nightclubs and gyms. And, as other states follow suit, Carroll wrote that people still need to be careful.
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“We wasted our chance in the spring to get a better summer,” Carroll said. “We wasted our chance in the summer to plan for the fall. We’re wasting time again now. Next year isn’t that far away.
We still need to figure out how to live in this new world, now, and that means embracing, finally, all the strategies for fighting the virus that many of us have resisted.”
Carroll wrote that people’s faith in an eventual medical solution or vaccine is in part to blame for the “unrealistic optimism” that things are getting back to normal.
And, he wrote, a vaccine will not be a comprehensive fix to the dangers and risks of the virus:
All immunizations are not the same. Some, like the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, provide strong, nearly lifelong benefits after a few doses. Others, like the influenza vaccine, produce limited benefits that last for a season. We don’t know yet where a coronavirus vaccine will fall, although something along the lines of a flu shot seems more probable. We don’t know how long whatever immunity it provides will last. We don’t know whether there will be populations that derive more or less benefit. Because of all these unknowns, we will need to continue to be exceedingly careful even as we immunize. Until we see convincing evidence that a vaccine has a large population-level effect, we will still need to mask and distance and restrain ourselves. Too many of us won’t. Too many will believe that the vaccine has saved them, and they will throw themselves back into more normal activities.
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The United States’ failure to manage and control the virus, Carroll wrote, is related to the lack of government support for populations that are most vulnerable to COVID-19: low-income people, people experiencing homelessness or people living with a disability.
Carroll wrote that taking care of these populations, along with increased testing, contact tracing and a social understanding of the importance of masks will aid but not guarantee a return to “normal.”
“This is a marathon, not a sprint,” he wrote. “Both, though, require running.”
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