Member-only story
To Have an Almost-Normal Summer, Do This Now
Guidance from a global health doctor
New strains of the coronavirus are upon us, and we must respond with vigilance. In a recent piece in the New York Times, I discussed what we need to do at an individual level to stop the new coronavirus variants.
Admittedly, the variants still travel via the same routes as the previously dominant virus — in droplets and aerosols through the air — and so the same measures are still needed to avoid transmission.
But I would hesitate to advise “keep doing exactly what we were doing” because that’s also not true. At this time last year, we were advising people to wear any mask they could, very few experts (aside from key aerosol scientists and environmental scientists) were talking about ventilation, we didn’t have vaccines, and we knew far less about how the virus spreads. We overfocused at that point on cleaning surfaces and focused less on cleaning the air.
We are so close to stopping the epidemic in the U.S. — which makes this the…
