We’ve swung between fear and denial for too long and need to talk about this disease from a different perspective
President Joe Biden’s recent bout of COVID drew immediate comparisons with President Donald Trump’s experience. Biden had mild symptoms and worked at his desk, while Trump developed a severe respiratory condition requiring helicopter evacuation and three days of urgent treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The experiences of these two men reflect changes in COVID risk that actually impact all of us.
Humans know so much more now about the coronavirus that causes COVID and how it plays out in those infected. How we think about COVID needs to reflect this new knowledge. The central question in constructing a new COVID narrative is whether we can say that the virus no longer poses a major public health threat. What does it mean that the disease is still around but is not causing significant disruption in our daily lives? When and how does a virus migrate from being “pandemic” to “endemic”? There is no clear epidemiologic definition of “endemic” relative to “pandemic.
Yet, while about 22 percent of eligible Americans are unvaccinated, almost all of this group are vaccine skeptics, who are unwilling or uncertain about getting vaccinated. Expanding new vaccinations alone is unlikely to be a major successful control strategy. As philosophers of science have noted, challenging narratives isn’t something that comes readily to the human mind. Through the many tortuous turns of the pandemic, the “follow the science” mantra has become as contentious as the tenets of any other belief system. While there have been many incremental tweaks in expert and resulting media guidance, the bifurcation of camps around “fear the virus” and “full speed ahead” continues.
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