The U.S. needs a COVID forecast – By Tina Reed (Axios) / February 14, 2022
Experts say the U.S. needs clearer, more defined standards that will help the public understand when it’s safe to relax COVID restrictions — and when it might be necessary to bring them back.
Why it matters: Experts compare this need to a weather forecast or air-quality warnings: People are more willing to accept inconveniences if they understand the reasons why.
“I think what people are tired of are these protracted, long periods of disruption with no clear goal and, therefore, this anxiety that it’s going to keep going,” Jeremy Faust, an emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, told Axios.
- Instead, local officials could say: “Listen, we’re trying to get the hospitals to under 75% full. We’re trying to get case rates under 50 per 100,000 … Once that happens, great, masks can come off again,” Faust said.
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