U.S. nears 1 million COVID deaths amid questions over pandemic’s next phase

Geoff Bennett:

The U.S. is on the brink of reaching 1 million COVID deaths since the start of the pandemic more than two years ago, as that grim milestone approaches health experts nationwide are debating whether a new phase of the pandemic has already started. I spoke with an expert on this very topic.

Dr. Cindy Prins is the Assistant Dean at the University of Florida College of Public Health. It's great to have you with us. And Dr. Prins, can you explain for us where we are in the life of this pandemic? I asked the question because Dr. Fauci said on the NewsHour this past week that the country is out of the pandemic phase. He later clarified and said that he should have said the acute pandemic phase, you as I understand it, say we're not yet in the endemic phase. So why not? Where are we? Help us make sense of it.

Dr. Cindy Prins, University of Florida: Yeah, we're certainly in a better place than we were a couple of months ago when we were dealing with Omicron. But we're still dealing with a pandemic, we're certainly still in a pandemic phase. And I say that because we're still dealing with cases, we're seeing cases actually go up in several places in the country right now, because of these other Omicron variants. And then, also, because we're seeing hospitalizations increase, and then there's always the potential for a new variant. And I just don't think that we've necessarily settled into a phase where we have a regular and low level of cases that we're looking for eventually.

Geoff Bennett:

So what will it take then to get to a sort of endemic normalcy where people get their COVID shot every year, just like they get their flu shot every year and we live with it.

Dr. Cindy Prins:

I think where we need to go for that is number one for people to get their COVID shot so that's first of all, you know, we go didn't have enough vaccination coverage within our country and then certainly we know that booster coverage is fairly low for those who are eligible for boosters. So that's the primary thing that we need to do. And secondary is that we need that vaccine coverage to also be high throughout other countries in the world. And I say that because this is how variants develop when you have increased in cases in other places, you have the potential for people to essentially create a variant within themselves. And that can easily be spread to the U.S., to other countries, because our travel is just so fluid nowadays.

Geoff Bennett:

I'm interested to get your perspective as a public health expert, when you look at the way the U.S. has handled this pandemic, as a case study, when you're talking to your students, you know, what did the U.S. get right? And what did we get wrong? Where is there room for improvement as we move forward?

Dr. Cindy Prins:

I think one place that there's room for improvement, it's just in the preparation. So obviously, we didn't necessarily have the foresight to know this pandemic was coming at this very time. But certainly, we had the foresight to know what we needed to do to prepare for a pandemic. And I think we were a little lost there in the PPE in the testing, and all of those things that really didn't go well at the beginning of the pandemic.

I think the other part of it is the communication. And a lot has been said about that. But being able to communicate with people, what are the precautions they need to take, why they need to take them, having that open communication, and then being very honest, when communication has to pivot, when we have to make different recommendations, because we're constantly learning during this pandemic.

Geoff Bennett:

Is the U.S. prepared for the next pandemic? I've spoken to public health officials who say it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when the next one hits?

Dr. Cindy Prins:

I think that's a concern. You know, what happens when we have any kind of public health crisis is during the crisis, we tend to put a lot of money, a lot of effort and a lot of thought into what's going on. Once that crisis abates, we tend to forget about it. And we've seen that happen in many different cases.

And so I do worry that we're not going to continue this preparedness front when we're looking at a new pandemic coming forth. There are a lot of things that we need in place still. I mean, if I even think about things like medical records and being able to share those nationally, vaccine records, we've learned a lot about testing and mass vaccination. But you know, being able to continue that and improve on that, and apply that to a new pandemic, I'm not quite sure we're ready for that yet.

Geoff Bennett:

Dr. Cindy Prins, thanks so much for your insights.