Washington, D.C., for example, on Tuesday announced it is lifting its mask mandate.
“We are learning to live with COVID,” said LaQuandra Nesbitt, director of D.C.’s health department. She said the virus is becoming “endemic,” meaning it is fading into a fact of life in the background. “It’s really my way of trying to stress to people that we’ve moved away from this goal of getting to zero cases,” she said.
Other experts, though, worried the move was premature heading into the winter and with cases and deaths still at a high level.
“The way I view it is this is the last part of the crisis phase,” said Walid Gellad, professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. He said it would make sense to wait a few more weeks to allow more children under 12 to be vaccinated and to give time for powerful new antiviral treatments from Pfizer and Merck to be authorized.
D.C.’s move, he said, could be like taking “your foot off the gas right before you’re over the finish line.”
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