State of play: The federal government is pushing ahead with a vaccine booster effort that some experts say is unnecessary, state and local governments are taking a patchwork approach to masking and vaccine policies and individual Americans are all trying to figure out how much risk they’re willing to tolerate in everyday life.
School districts and businesses are trying to figure out how to handle — and are taking very different approaches to — the return to school and work.
But the U.S. as a country hasn’t agreed on a set of outcomes we’re trying to achieve, particularly whether we’re trying to eliminate the spread of the virus or to greatly reduce the level of hospitalizations and death it causes.
“If the goal is getting to zero infections and staying at that level before dropping restrictions, one set of policies apply. If the goal is to make this virus like the seasonal flu, a different set of policies follow,” Allen and Jenkins write.
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