Views Reference

Nearly two years after a state of emergency was first declared in the US, experts still struggle with how to think about long COVID, vaccine effectiveness and more.
 

U.S. health officials are optimistic, albeit cautiously, the country has turned the corner on the unprecedented wave of infection caused by the omicron Covid variant as new cases plummet 90% from a pandemic record set just five weeks ago.
 

As omicron cases continue to decline across the region, health departments in the District, Virginia and Maryland have reported new cases of a subvariant strain of the illness, but one expert said it doesn’t appear the newest version of COVID-19 will lead to another spike in cases.
 

Pointing out the logical flaws in mask mandates is easy. Fixing them is hard—and important.
David Dowdy and Tara Kirk Sell are quoted. 

Cases, deaths, and hospitalizations have plummeted – but transmission remains high across the nation.
 

We’ve been at similar junctures before—at the end of the very first surge, again in the pre-Delta downslope. Each time, the virus has come roaring back. It is not done with us. Which means that we cannot be done with it.
Jennifer Nuzzo and Crystal Watson are quoted. 
 

The omicron wave that assaulted the United States this winter also bolstered its defenses, leaving enough protection against the coronavirus that future spikes will likely require much less — if any — dramatic disruption to society.
Andy Pekosz and Shaun Truelove are quoted. 

If you’ve heard people say it’s time to start “living with COVID,” you’re not alone. TheSkimm asked two experts what that phrase actually means, and how we can assess our own risk going forward.
 

The new normal is hard to predict. The economic picture is mixed while downtowns remain under peril.
 

The United States has recorded more than 1 million “excess deaths” since the start of the pandemic, government mortality statistics show, a toll that exceeds the officially documented lethality of the coronavirus and captures the broad consequences of the health crisis that has entered its third year.
 

The pace of people getting Covid-19 vaccine booster shots in the United States has dropped to the lowest it has ever been, and many public health experts are concerned.
 

The end of D.C.’s mask and vaccine mandates means that some residents, particularly parents of children under the age of five, and those who are immunocompromised, are re-calculating risk as some D.C. council members criticize the move.