The road to reopening won't be a straight line

Even as the pandemic retreats, we won’t eliminate all Covid infections, but we can make sure that major surges in hospitalizations and deaths don’t recur. One key indicator to track is whether stress on the healthcare system remains low. For a full year, officials have been trying to ensure that hospital use doesn’t reach crisis levels. Now, the goal should be for hospitalization rates to resemble those associated with routine infectious diseases. Combined with better control of seasonal flu which burdens hospitals each winter, Covid transmission can be suppressed to manageable levels…

Better viral surveillance is also necessary to get out in front of any possible surge in serious cases. People with symptoms need easy access to diagnostic tests. Those who do become sick need therapies like antibody drugs to reduce the chances of becoming seriously ill. Surveillance should also include routine evaluation of the genetic sequences of different strains that are collected, to quickly identify new variants, and determine if they pose increased danger.

More people getting vaccinated likely means an increase in the share of infections showing no or minimal symptoms. So “tracking and tracing” symptomatic people to identify and mitigate spread won’t be enough. Communities, workplaces, and other settings at greater risk of outbreaks, and those where outbreaks are detected, will need access to reliable screening tests to prevent new epidemics.