Time - USA (2020-11-30)

44 TIME November 30/December 7, 2020

many fewer than the 55 million who did so last year. (AAA did

note that it expects the actual number of 2020 travelers to be

lower, given the evolving COVID-19 crisis.) With COVID-19

case counts rising, that could be catastrophic. Canada saw a

spike in cases after its Thanks giving holiday in October, and the

U.S. may be in for the same fate. As people travel to and from

areas where the virus is surging, they risk carrying the infec-

tion with them and seeding it to new places.

People may be inclined to travel because of a mistaken per-

ception that the pandemic is better controlled now than it

was earlier in the year. In mid-April, about 37% of Americans

said they were “very” concerned they or someone they know

would catch COVID-19, according to data from the website

FiveThirtyEight. As of Nov. 17, that number had dipped to less

than 32%, despite the fact that case counts are now higher and

more geographically diverse than they were in April. A recent

study in the medical journal PLOS ONE found that people of all

ages were more likely to partake in risky behaviors, like attend-

ing gatherings and seeing friends, as the pandemic dragged on.

That’s in part because the Trump Administration has re-

peatedly promised, without evidence, that the U.S. is turning

a corner on the pandemic. But it may also be an unwanted side

eff ect of a rare fl urry of good news related to the outbreak.

THE U.S. FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION has now au-

thorized multiple drugs for treating COVID-19, includ-

ing the anti viral remdesivir and the monoclonal antibody

bamlanivimab, and hospitals are reporting better survival

rates among COVID-19 patients than they were this spring.

But Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency- medicine physician

from Brown University, says that could easily change if hos-

pitals become overwhelmed—which many already are, and

many more will be as recently diagnosed patients get sicker

in the coming weeks.

“Yes, we know more than we did,” Ranney says. “However,

many of the gains we have seen have nothing to do with having

good treatments—they have more to do with the fact that we’re

comfortable with [the virus] and the health system isn’t over-

whelmed.” If the virus’s spread isn’t brought under control, that

won’t stay true. And though doctors do know more than they

did this spring, there are still plenty of outstanding questions

about why some previously healthy peo-

ple get seriously ill and others don’t; why

some people develop long-lasting symp-

toms after infection and others don’t;

and how immunity to the virus works.

Vaccines have also been a source of

optimism lately. Pharmaceutical com-

panies Pfi zer and Moderna each an-

nounced in November that their vaccine

candidates are at least 90% eff ective at

preventing COVID-19, setting off a fl urry of positive headlines.

But, as of this writing, neither vaccine has yet been approved

or granted emergency- use authorization by the FDA, and even

once they are, it will take months for doses to become available

to most of the general public.

The promising vaccine news “doesn’t mean that we can go

back to our pre-pandemic lifestyles,” says Dr. William Moss,

executive director of the International Vaccine Access Cen-

ter at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

“We’re going to have to continue our social distancing and

mask wearing for the foreseeable future, until we get really

high coverage with a vaccine that’s highly protective and re-

duces transmission.”

But individual choices around masking and social distanc-

ing only go so far. In times of crisis, people turn to their leaders

for support and guidance—and on that front, elected offi cials

are failing. The Trump Administration has done little to coun-

ter rampant misinformation about the pandemic, and has made

numerous incorrect statements about the virus’s origins, spread

and deadliness. The COVID-19 situation could be very diff erent

“if we had a President and Administration that were not going

counter-current to science and facts,” says Dr. Eric Topol, di-

rector of the Scripps Research Transla-

tional Institute. “From day one, Trump

and his team have basically not taken it

seriously.”

Now, with Trump serving out the

rest of his term as a lame duck who

won’t admit he lost, the situation is par-

ticularly scary, Topol says. Trump has

stopped attending White House corona-

virus task-force meetings and has said

little about the current corona virus surge gripping the country.

President-elect Biden and Vice President –elect Kamala

Harris have signaled commitment to public-health inter-

ventions that could help get the virus under control, like ex-

panded access to testing, mask mandates and a robust vaccine-

distribution program. But Biden and Harris can’t do much of

substance until they take offi ce, and the Trump Administration

Health

‘There was a sense

of patriotism—and

then it faded. The

public is tired.’

—DR. NATASHA KATHURIA, Austin

SUMMER WAVE PEAK

July 19: 67,122 new cases

250 2,500

Second vs. third wave