Vaccines Are Coming, but Pandemic Experts Expect a 'Horrible' Winter - The New York Times

Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health and one of two dozen experts interviewed by The New York Times about the near future.

Even as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged Americans to avoid holiday travel and many health officials asked families to cancel big gatherings, more than six million Americans took flights during Thanksgiving week, which is about 40 percent of last year’s air traffic.

has assembled excellent advisers and a sensible plan for tackling the pandemic, public health experts said.

By late December, the first doses of vaccine may be available to Americans, federal officials have said.

But even as the medical response to the virus is improving, the politics of public health remain a deeply vexing challenge.

But that seemed unlikely to occur, many health experts said.

William Schaffner, a preventive medicine specialist at Vanderbilt University medical school.

Trump heeded his medical advisers in late spring and adopted measures to curb new infections, the nation could now be on track to exit the epidemic next year with far fewer deaths per capita than many other nations.

Some health experts expressed concern that Mr.

“There is pretty broad support for mask mandates even among Republicans,” said Martha Louise Lincoln, a medical historian at San Francisco State University.

Masks can also preserve the economy: A study by Goldman Sachs estimated that universal use would save $1 trillion that may be lost to business shutdowns and medical bills.

Biden has said that he intends to tackle the pandemic from his first full day in office, on Jan.

The experts generally praised the panel of advisers chosen by Mr.

But several experts, some of whom spoke anonymously to avoid offending friends and colleagues, said the panel needed different skills and a different kind of balance.

Others said the panel needed more behavioral scientists adept at fighting rumors, which have been a major obstacle.

Others said the panel had too many members tied to the Obama-Biden administration.

Trump’s base, they said, the panel needs credible Republican experts.

It calls for far more widespread testing, delivered free; a ban on out-of-pocket costs for medical care for the virus; having the military build temporary hospitals if necessary; cooperation with American businesses to create more personal protective gear and ventilators; more food relief for the poor, and other measures.

Biden has said he supports a national mask mandate, although his plan calls on governors to impose state ones.

All the experts interviewed by The Times praised the plan, but several felt it was not aggressive enough.

Howard Markel, a medical historian at the University of Michigan’s medical school.

Universities, he and other experts said, must stop students from going back and forth between their hometowns and college towns, both of which have many vulnerable residents.

Robert Klitzman, a psychiatrist and bioethicist at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, is to punish not people but the owners of buildings that ignore restrictions; Quebec, he noted, fines stores $4,500 if customers are unmasked.

But after a very divisive election, other experts said, it will be hard to get many Americans to cooperate, especially if Mr.

The health experts interviewed by The Times all expressed excitement that the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines were reported to be 95 percent effective with no serious safety problems.

Members of his transition team, speaking anonymously because they were not authorized to reveal its deliberations, said they were already discussing two sensitive topics: whether to create a secure way for vaccinated individuals to prove they have received both shots, and whether Covid vaccines should ultimately be made mandatory — either by the federal government, or by state governments, employers, school systems or the like.

Making vaccines mandatory may be a political struggle, but it is within the scope of American law.

Massachusetts, the Supreme Court upheld the right of a state government to make smallpox vaccination mandatory, on the grounds that it protected the public health — despite the fact that the crude smallpox vaccines of that era could cause severe side effects in some people.

Virtually every major religion has held that vaccines are permitted, and some even hold that their members are obliged to be vaccinated for the common good.

Some experts not on the committee were adamant that, once Covid vaccines are proven to be both effective and safe, they should be made obligatory.

Ian Lipkin, director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, noted that his institution already has mandatory testing for all students and staff.

Offit’s pediatric hospital, every member must have had all routine vaccines and get an annual flu shot — or face dismissal.

But spring is likely to bring highly effective vaccines and a renewed commitment to medical leadership, something that has been missing under Mr

Murphy, director of the Institute for Global Health at Northwestern University’s medical school