The US could be the place where Covid-19 is transformed into a situation in which we “learn to live with it,” according to a former member of President Biden’s coronavirus task force.
Speaking on NBC’s Meet The PressDr. Ezekiel Emanuel today cited vaccines and new treatments as mitigation measures that he claims will make the coronavirus easier to manage and similar to the flu. Emanuel’s comments echo those of other government officials and medical personnel, who appear to be moving away from scare tactics on case loads and toward acknowleding that deaths are flat and hospitalizations won’t face a doomsday scenario.
“We think that over the course of 2022, we will get to an endemic stage, and the plan is — or the proposal is — we need a strategic plan for that, that covers vaccines, getting more people vaccinated, and the only way to do that, as we’ve been very clear over time, is mandates,”Emanuel spoke.
He viewed the next three-months as crucial. “to be prepared when COVID is really just in the air, like RSV, another respiratory virus, like influenza, like adenovirus, all the respiratory viruses. It’s going to be here. We’re going to learn to live with it,”He stated.
The US has not reached the endemic stage due to the current explosion in omicron cases. “If you’ve got 1,500 people a day dying from this disease, it’s still a pandemic, and omicron is spreading,”He stated.