It’s the million-dollar question everyone is asking about COVID-19: When will life go back to normal? And will the school be open this fall?
The answers are all over the map – from the governors of Texas and Mississippi declaring their states already open and removing mandates from the masks, to health experts who warn that the virus will always last.
The reality, however, depends a lot on how you define “normal”. And, if enough Americans show up for a chance this summer, it may not be as depressing as you think.
Experts say autumn may become the season of a “new normal” when the world slowly reopens and people will reconnect, but with masks, routine tests and possibly even vaccine cards to allow them to enter cinemas or restaurants .
“It will be so gradual that we probably won’t even notice,” said Howard Markel, a medical historian at the University of Michigan and a pediatrician. “It’s not a light switch or like Valentine’s Day – like, it’s over, you know, we won! It’s not like that.”
So, what could hinder everything? Infectious disease experts agree that at least 70-85% of the country needs to become immune to kill the hunger virus. Markel said he prefers 90% with such a stealthy virus.
“It all depends on how many people roll up their sleeves and get immunized,” Markel told ABC News. “So that’s my fear, it’s what keeps me up at night.”
Here’s what health experts say could happen this year:
Spring will be a time of uncertainty and possibly more deaths
The country is paralyzed by the virus. Even with the national seven-day average dropping about 74% in a matter of weeks, the US still reports about 64,000 new cases per day. That average is at the same level as last fall, just before the cases exploded in the holiday season.
This stagnant progress means that the country is about to enter the season of spring break travel, graduation parties, family vacations and neighborhood meetings with already high viral transmission, while a new, more transmissible variant originating in Britain must be become the most dominant strain of the virus in mid-March.
Health experts warn that states like Texas and Mississippi are now reopening and withdrawing mask prescriptions, there may be a bleak increase in new cases – followed by hospitalizations and deaths weeks later – just when the country is on the verge of mass vaccinations.
“I know that the idea of relaxing wearing the mask and returning to everyday activities is attractive. But we are not there yet,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We have seen this film before. When preventive measures, such as masking mandates, are reversed, cases increase.”
Fingers crossed, summer becomes the season for mass vaccinations
If production can keep up, the United States hopes to arrive in June with enough vaccine doses for 300 million Americans. Vaccines will still be limited to adults, with some offer available to teenagers over 16.
“I think it’s a big undertaking,” said Simone Wildes, an infectious disease physician at South Shore Health in Massachusetts and a medical collaborator at ABC News, on the implementation of mass vaccination.
“But if we can finish in June, July … we can have a decent summer. But it really depends on how things are going in the coming months,” she said.
Markel also predicted that, by early July, almost all “first to accept” the vaccine will have received an injection. At that point, much of the nation may be able to expand its “pod” – slowly.
Markel said he would still not recommend making an advance deposit at a non-refundable beach house with relatives this summer.
Wildes agreed.
“Be flexible, because if you know that people are not vaccinated, if there is an increase in the number of cases, in particular with the variants, we can cancel these plans,” said Wildes. “There is nothing wrong with making provisional plans, but I think we just have to be aware of where things are at that specific point.”
Depending on how many Americans are vaccinated, autumn can become the ‘new normal’
Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Thursday that he now thinks of “autumn, mid-autumn, early winter” that everyone can go back to work, children will be at school and meals indoors may be humming again.
His forecast follows an announcement by the White House that a vaccine manufacturer, Johnson & Johnson, would be able to speed up its supply. But it would still take the summer months to roll out the vaccines.
“When we get to the drop with the implementation of the vaccine program, you will see something visibly towards returning to normality and we will most likely get there by the end of the year,” said Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease specialist and the main medical advisor to President Joe Biden.
Dr. William Schaffner, professor of Preventive Medicine and Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said he prefers to put “normal” in quotes now because life would probably be very different. Online business meetings, for example, can become more common than crowded conference rooms, “if possible.
“Masks must be one of the last things that will go away,” said Schaffner. “They are a nuisance, they are idiots, but they are so effective, so easy and so cheap. They would not be the first things I would take out; they would be the last.”
But if enough people were vaccinated, he agreed that schools and colleges should be opened at low risk this fall and the United States could see a brighter Thanksgiving Day.
“My expectation is that we will be in this ‘new normal’ in late summer and fall, and we can all – hopefully – thank Thanksgiving Day, in a more conventional way, sitting around the table with our family, friends , relatives, without masks, thank and rejoice that we have overcome this terrible and survived pandemic, “said Schaffner.
Still, all the experts interviewed by ABC News described a type of “wait and see” preventive approach. Vaccination hesitation among some Americans remains a concern. And if viral transmission in other countries remains high, the virus can mutate to fragment the vaccine’s effectiveness – potentially putting even vaccinated individuals at risk.
“We can go back to some of the things we’re used to, but to say that we’re going to go back to normal – it’s not going to be the same,” said Wildes.
“I think it will even be difficult for me to hug people,” she added later.
When it’s all over, no matter how many months or years from now, Markel, who has spent 30 years studying pandemics, is sure of one thing: “Let’s forget about all of this.”
“We will continue on our merry way,” he said. “I’m telling you, I studied a lot of pandemics. It’s the end. It’s like amnesia. And that’s what I worry about.”