“This virus is sure to continue to evolve and mutate,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, during a call with reporters on Friday.
The federal and state governments are rushing to try to vaccinate the population, but even the most optimistic forecast suggests that many, if not most, Americans will have to wait until the summer to become immunized.
Is there any way to prevent the worst? Can the use of a better mask, more tests and stricter social distance help?
President Joe Biden’s first executive order was a federal mask order – something that affected only federal and contract offices, since he cannot tell states what to do. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating whether the double-masking recommendation can help. Several experts have recommended that Americans start wearing N95 masks – hospital-quality facial covers that are still in short supply.
There is a cry for more tests. The new administration has issued stricter test requirements for international travel and is debating whether to require testing for domestic travel as well.
The new director of the CDC, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, says that the arrival of the new variants means that Americans must double in all the things they are already being instructed to do – but that millions of Americans are still not doing.
“The emergence of variants underscores the need for public health action. First, be vaccinated when it is your turn,” Walensky told a news conference at the White House this week.
“Second, wear a mask. Practice social detachment and wash your hands. And finally, now is not the time to travel. But, if necessary, be safe and follow CDC guidelines.”
But public health experts are pessimistic that Americans will change their habits, a year after the pandemic. Americans who are going to wear masks are already doing this. Those who can or want to stay at home are already doing so. The blockades have been unpopular and the local authorities are unwilling to apply them in any way.
“We have not seen governments taking steps to apply precautionary measures as quickly as expected, and we have incorporated this information into the modeling,” said IHME director Dr. Christopher Murray, as he released his team’s latest gloomy forecast. “Without measures to control the spread of the disease, mobility remains greater and transmission is more likely.”
Deaths would be less if Americans simply wore masks and stayed more at home. If most people followed the guidelines for social distance and masking, 30,000 fewer people would die by May 1, said IHME.
There is an argument for this, says risk communication expert Peter Sandman.
“It may be easier to sell new precautions than the old ones. And that is perhaps why double masks are getting so much attention in the past few days,” said Sandman.
But Murray doesn’t think people are going to accept that. Nor is Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
“We have a Category 10 hurricane looking at us. People don’t understand that,” Osterholm told CNN.
Osterholm does not believe that better masks, or more masks, or double masks, will help.
“People assume that more is better,” he said. But most people don’t even wear masks correctly in the first place, leaving their noses uncovered or allowing air to enter and exit the sides.
“That’s the first thing. Use them correctly. But people think, ‘If I just put in more, I’m suddenly more protected.’ And that is not the case. “
Extra layers can trap more particles, but they also make the mask uncomfortable, he said. “But if you put on a second mask, now the air is more difficult to suck. At that point, it just leaks out, ”he noted.
The theory that better masks can slow the pandemic is valid, but it doesn’t work in real life, said Osterholm.
“If we had an N95 for everyone, if everyone really used an N95 effectively, we could really have a considerable impact on that in four weeks. But I’m dreaming.”
There is now a hard core of anti-masking agents. “There is a group of 25 or 30% or more who see the use of a mask as shameful and will not do it. These are the same people who, if you send two N95s to their homes, they will not use them.” he said.
The same applies to increasing testing.
“The same people who say that if we just tested them all and tested them at home, we could really reduce transmission – my answer to that is, of course, most tests at home … do you think people who go to bars and will people exposing themselves in large groups take a test? “Osterholm asked.
“People who don’t leave home – they go. They test themselves every day when they don’t have to.”
As for the blocks, they’re not just unpopular – they don’t work, said Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Safety.
“There is a danger when you do this,” Adalja told CNN.
“You say, ‘No, you can’t eat in a restaurant, so instead, it’s,’ Let’s all go to Jimmy’s house for pizza and sit down and watch the football game together. Then they all get squeezed together and screaming and screaming, which probably won’t happen in a restaurant where you are all far away, where people are looking at you, “he said.
“If you tell people to never let anyone into your home, they will not follow that.”
Much of the dissemination, research indicates, is taking place at meetings such as weddings, holiday celebrations, high school sports and other community events.
That’s where Adalja believes that better and more frequent messages can help.
“It’s a lot more about, you can open the windows, you can do it outdoors, make sure that nobody you’re inviting is waiting for a test result is part of a contact tracking investigation. That kind of approach is better than saying never mix with anyone outside your home. They just won’t do that, “he said.
The longer the pandemic lasts, the more careless people are likely to be. Fear of new variants can either make people freeze or give up or react with more responsibility, said Sandman, the risk communications expert.
“Like the original arrival of the Covid-19 virus in the United States, this will once again be an exponential change,” he said. “And, again, the inability of the human psyche to truly understand what ‘exponential’ means will condemn us to be unprepared – unprepared both psychologically and practically,” he added.
And just one slip, said Osterholm.
“Like pregnancy – people say ‘well, we take precautions most of the time’. With this, failure is not an option. “
And people will struggle with the idea of new variants that pose a new threat, said Sandman.
So, vaccination is the best and only hope? Fauci seems to think so. “The best way to prevent a virus from evolving is to prevent it from replicating and you do that by vaccinating people as soon as possible,” he said.
But the hope of vaccines may, paradoxically, encourage people to slow down in other ways. just as they should be doubling.
“The same old precautions – masks, social detachment, etc. – are about to become even more important,” said Sandman.
“Selling this means trying to show people how exponential growth works. Somehow, we need to be a lot more cautious, just as the imminent vaccination is trying to make us a lot less cautious.”