SACRAMENTO, Calif. — ABC10 health expert Dr. Payal Kohli and Dr. William Schaffner, professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center agree that new variants of COVID-19 will likely push back the timeline for when this can return to “normal” in a post-pandemic world.
“Before the finish line was within our eyesight. We were seeing the vaccines on the horizon. It was coming,” said Dr. Kohli. “Now that these variants are in the mix, that finish line just got a little farther away.”
She explained there needs to be a change in the way the public looks at the pandemic.
“By changing the way that we're thinking, we’re actually going to make the reality happen, we’re going to help end the pandemic more quickly if we’re prepared to stay in it for at least the next 12-18 months.”
Dr. William Schaffner said he’s a bit more optimistic.
“I’m still cautiously optimistic that we can win this race by the end of the summer and have vaccinated enough adults so that maybe we could put our masks aside and return to something that’s near normal.”
He believes going forward, the public will learn to live with COVID-19
“You know we live with influenza, we likely will be living with COVID. And I wouldn’t be surprised, to make a gentle prediction, that on an annual basis, we get the flu shot in one arm and the COVID vaccine shot in the other arm,” said Dr. Schaffner. He explained now is a race between COVID-19, its variants, and the vaccines.
“Hang in everybody. The cases are coming down. Let’s keep driving them down by wearing the mask, social distancing, and getting vaccine just as soon as you become eligible for it.”
The ABC10 Vaccine team has some answers to questions about how the coronavirus has been mutating would mean for the vaccine.
