America Says Goodbye to Covid

Realistic? Or a Delusional View of Our ‘New Normal’?

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

For weeks now, news outlets all across America have been offering us a sunny view of what Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC’s new director, said in her May 13th Covid-19 announcement.

Here are three of the best examples of the press’s overly sunny interpretation of Dr. Walensky’s announcement:

• “The CDC’s new mask rule promises freedom. [The Philadelphia Inquirer]
• “This is a moment to celebrate. It is not quite the pandemic’s equivalent of V-E Day…But it could be the closest we get to a formal announcement…that… something has been won. Call it normalcy.” [The Atlantic]
• “This is the beginning of the end of the American pandemic… vaccinated Americans can resume their pre-pandemic lives.” [The New Yorker]

AXIOS, in a poll they published on June 8th, has documented the impact that Dr. Walensky’s announcement and the press’s reporting of it have had on America’s view of the risks they’re facing because of the coronavirus pandemic:

“In a very short time,” AXIOS writes, “Americans have returned to doing the things many haven’t done in a long time.” According to the Axios/Ipsos Coronanvirus Index, many Americans now see less risk than ever before in returning to their pre-pandemic lives. Last March, for example, 61% saw a large to moderate risk in returning to their pre-coronavirus lives. This month, in June, only 30% see this kind of risk. As a matter of fact, Axios/Ipsos’s June 8th Index poll shows us that 70% of all Americans — Democrats, Republicans, and Independents — are saying they see “little to no risk in returning to their old haunts, habits and lives.”

In Contrast

Last week, in an article I wrote (Misinformation Strikes Again), I suggested that “America’s pandemic realities are much more complicated than the press’s grossly optimistic first interpretations… Numerous public health experts agreed, offering a counter-story that provided a much more cautionary view.”

Here’s a small sample of the articles offering these scientists’ “cautionary views” of our coronavirus-tinged future:

• “Fauci warns U.S. not to declare “victory”…