But this uncertainty also means that the near future could prove to be more encouraging than we expect. And there are some legitimate reasons for Covid optimism.
The share of Americans 12 and over who have received at least one vaccine shot has reached 76 percent, and the growing number of vaccine mandates — along with the likely authorization of the Pfizer vaccine for children ages 5 to 11 — will increase the number of vaccinations this fall. Almost as important, something like one-half of Americans have probably had the Covid virus already, giving them some natural immunity.
Eventually, immunity will become widespread enough that another wave as large and damaging as the Delta wave will not be possible. “Barring something unexpected,” Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former F.D.A. commissioner and the author of “Uncontrolled Spread,” a new book on Covid, told me, “I’m of the opinion that this is the last major wave of infection.”
Covid has not only been one of the worst pandemics in modern times. It has been an unnecessarily terrible pandemic. Of the more than 700,000 Americans who have died from it, nearly 200,000 probably could have been saved if they had chosen to take a vaccine. That is a national tragedy.
Covid also isn’t going to disappear anytime soon. It will continue to circulate for years, many scientists believe. But the vaccines can transform Covid into a manageable disease, not so different from a flu or common cold. In the past few weeks, the country appears to have moved closer to that less grim future.
Whatever this autumn brings, the worst of the pandemic is almost certainly behind us.
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