The pandemic IS OVER…..
We NEVER thought things would settle back…..
They have for almost all of us….
Serious reactions to the virus have dropped to the level for other things like the flu and vehicle accidents…..
BUT?
The pandemic HAS changed America and the World for sure…..
The power of immunity
The progress stems mostly from three factors:
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First, about three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot.
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Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with Covid, providing natural immunity from future symptoms. (About 97 percent of adults fall into at least one of those first two categories.)
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Third, post-infection treatments like Paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, became widely available last year.
“Nearly every death is preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, who was until recently President Biden’s top Covid adviser, told me. “We are at a point where almost everybody who’s up to date on their vaccines and gets treated if they have Covid, they rarely end up in the hospital, they almost never die.”
That is also true for most high-risk people, Jha pointed out, including older adults — like his parents, who are in their 80s — and people whose immune systems are compromised. “Even for most — not all but most — immunocompromised people, vaccines are actually still quite effective at preventing against serious illness,” he said. “There has been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immunocompromised that vaccines don’t work.”
That excess deaths have fallen close to zero helps make this point: If Covid were still a dire threat to large numbers of people, that would show up in the data…..
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With vs. from
Covid’s toll, to be clear, has not fallen to zero. The C.D.C.’s main Covid webpage estimates that about 80 people per day have been dying from the virus in recent weeks, which is equal to about 1 percent of overall daily deaths.
The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other C.D.C. data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions….
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Each of these deaths is a tragedy. The deaths that were preventable — because somebody had not received available vaccines and treatments — seem particularly tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster shot.)
Yet the number of Covid deaths has now dropped low enough that they are difficult to notice in the overall death data. They can be swamped by fluctuations in other causes of death, such as the flu or vehicle crashes….
The changes…..
Impact on activities: Disrupted routines and new hobbies
Nearly a third (32%) of Americans mentioned ways that the pandemic has limited what activities they can engage in or how they otherwise use their free time. These responses often focused on being stuck at home or being unable to travel, and were especially common among older adults. Some 45% of those 65 and older said the pandemic has forced them to remain isolated at home or otherwise unable to enjoy their normal routines in their older years – while just 27% of those under 50 described similar difficulties.
At the same time, roughly a quarter of Americans (26%) used the question as an opportunity to talk about ways their daily lives have improved, in many cases describing a slower pace of life, new hobbies, more time to get things done around the house or the freedom to simply relax in ways that were not possible in the pre-pandemic era….
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Impact on finances: Some save money, but many feel financial strain
Despite it being the least commonly mentioned type of negative experience, more than one-in-five Americans (22%) mentioned economic difficulties resulting from the pandemic – either challenges they have faced themselves, or that others faced more generally. (In another survey conducted around the same time, 33% of Americans responded to a direct question about their financial situation during the pandemic by saying they had used money from savings to pay for day-to-day living expenses, while 25% said they had trouble paying bills.) Many of these responses described unemployment or job loss (also included in the “work situation” category above), while others expressed frustration with rising prices, failing businesses or cost-of-living increases.
By contrast, just 13% mentioned positive financial changes that have resulted due to the pandemic, typically in the context of using the situation as an opportunity to save money….