Speaker 1: It's Monday, March one. I'm Oscar Ramiras from the Daily
Speaker 1: Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America.
Speaker 1: Pandemic numbers have been trending in the right direction, and
Speaker 1: the vaccine rollout has been ramping up. But when can
Speaker 1: we all get back to normal? The next few months
Speaker 1: will look just as they have been, but the summer
Speaker 1: could be the closest to normal that we have seen
Speaker 1: in a long time. Joe Pinsker, staff writer at The
Speaker 1: Atlantic previews with the next few seasons might look like
Speaker 1: on a road back to pre pandemic normalcy. Thanks for
Speaker 1: joining us, Joe, Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1: We've been going through this pandemic for a long time now.
Speaker 1: Everybody is ready for things to get back to normal. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: those answers are not always very clear. You know, what
Speaker 1: is normal now after this We can point out a
Speaker 1: timeline and hope for the best that it will follow
Speaker 1: that way. But you know, there's a lot of variables
Speaker 1: that come into play. Joe, you spoke to a few experts.
Speaker 1: You kind of sketched out a timeline, reading some of
Speaker 1: the tea leaves, seeing what life will be like over
Speaker 1: the next year or so and beyond that, and you
Speaker 1: broke things up by seasons, which I loved how you
Speaker 1: did that. So let's talk about the likely timeline for
Speaker 1: how things will return to normal, and let's start off
Speaker 1: with the next season that we're ready to go through,
Speaker 1: about March to May. Spring one. What are we looking at? So,
Speaker 1: I think spring looks a lot like what people have
Speaker 1: been doing for the past year. Of course, people have
Speaker 1: been doing all sorts of different things. Some people have
Speaker 1: been going to work, some people have been working from home,
Speaker 1: some people have been dining out, some people have been
Speaker 1: eating in every night. But whatever it is that people
Speaker 1: have been doing, I think we can expect them to
Speaker 1: have to do more of it for the next couple
Speaker 1: of months. The big question mark that will determine a
Speaker 1: lot of how cautious people will need to be in
Speaker 1: these coming months is what happens with the variants that
Speaker 1: we've heard so much about. We don't really know how
Speaker 1: much damage they'll do, but they could end up circulating
Speaker 1: quite a bit and doing a lot of damage. They
Speaker 1: could also end up not playing much of a factor.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of the thing that we're looking out
Speaker 1: for on the scale of the next couple of months.
Speaker 1: But in terms of daily life, daily life looks pretty
Speaker 1: similar to what it's been. The way you put it,
Speaker 1: I think was really put well cautious. We'll still have
Speaker 1: to be in this, in this mode of mask wearing,
Speaker 1: social distancing, doing all the same things we've been doing.
Speaker 1: As you mentioned, it's different for a lot of people,
Speaker 1: but that's where we're at right now. And beyond that,
Speaker 1: you know, as the vaccines start to roll out more
Speaker 1: to more Americans, people see other people getting the vaccine,
Speaker 1: so that hesitancy will drop also. Summer one, what are
Speaker 1: we looking at? I have to say I've done a
Speaker 1: lot of interviews over the course of this pandemic with
Speaker 1: experts wondering what they're thinking about, and I came away
Speaker 1: from these so much more optimistic and even a bit surprised.
Speaker 1: After these interviews that I did summer, they were saying,
Speaker 1: really should be great. They widely expect things to just
Speaker 1: look so much better in a lot of different dimensions.
Speaker 1: A lot of the things that we've not been able
Speaker 1: to do, like have friends and family over indoors, or
Speaker 1: dying inside restaurants safely, all these things that a lot
Speaker 1: of people have hesitated to do should become much much safer,
Speaker 1: and that includes the whole range of things like going
Speaker 1: into work and having people be in person at schools.
Speaker 1: Whether all of those things will phase in it once,
Speaker 1: it's probably not going to happen, but summer just should
Speaker 1: look a lot better in a lot of ways. In
Speaker 1: a way that for me is somebody who's been reporting
Speaker 1: on this stuff for a year now, it just is
Speaker 1: so much more encouraging than it has been. And you
Speaker 1: can remember what it was like last summer. People were
Speaker 1: already getting that first inkling of COVID fatigue. You know,
Speaker 1: the summer months were here was hot outside, you can
Speaker 1: you know, it was safer to be outside, and people
Speaker 1: went out to the beaches. They went out and started
Speaker 1: doing a lot more stuff. In part that's why we
Speaker 1: saw a couple of rises and cases and all. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I can definitely expect people to be in that mode again.
Speaker 1: Things of concerns still, you know, the timing for vaccinations
Speaker 1: for kids, you know, will that be in place by
Speaker 1: that time? And you also made mention, you know it
Speaker 1: won't be a full comeback. Maybe indoor concerts, full attendance
Speaker 1: at sporting events might not be ready. Just yet then
Speaker 1: the expectation of the people I talked to is that
Speaker 1: summer looks quite a bit more like the summer of
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen than the summer of It won't be entirely
Speaker 1: summer of As you said, concerts probably won't be back packed,
Speaker 1: sports stadiums probably won't be back. Also, international travel probably
Speaker 1: won't be back There are important limitations, but as far
Speaker 1: as how the summer should compare to what we've been
Speaker 1: through so far, it really should be a tremendous departure
Speaker 1: fall of one and winter, you know, the beginning of
Speaker 1: the year. What are we looking at there? Because the
Speaker 1: concern also is, you know, with the colder months, we
Speaker 1: see uh an increase in flu cases. Obviously other respiratory things,
Speaker 1: COVID will be among them. You know, we'll really see
Speaker 1: kind of what these variants that we've been really worried about,
Speaker 1: how much more transmissible they'll be when it gets colder again.
Speaker 1: This is one of the things that I think people
Speaker 1: might struggle to wrap their minds around. I certainly did
Speaker 1: as I thought about it. There is a chance that
Speaker 1: we have a fantastic summer as I've just described, and
Speaker 1: at the same time fall and winter and the colder
Speaker 1: months end up being not so great. Experts that I
Speaker 1: spoke with generally expect there to be some sort of
Speaker 1: uptick in cases and deaths in the coulder months. The
Speaker 1: big question is how much that would be. There's a
Speaker 1: chance that it really is quite small, in which case
Speaker 1: we get to start reintroducing things like concerts and other
Speaker 1: things that would represent sort of full quote unquote normalcy.
Speaker 1: There's also a chance, as you noted, that the variants
Speaker 1: end up doing something weird and unexpected. That seems like
Speaker 1: a less likely possibility. But I would say in general
Speaker 1: that even if summer is excellent, there is this sort
Speaker 1: of chance that the fall and winter are not so
Speaker 1: great and represent a backslide. And then finally spring summer
Speaker 1: two so really a whole other year out will be
Speaker 1: kind of back to that quote unquote normal. You know,
Speaker 1: what is going to be normal after the pandemic. It's
Speaker 1: still yet to be seen, but that's when will be
Speaker 1: a lot looser with our mask wearing and our social distancing,
Speaker 1: you know, will be in the habit now of being
Speaker 1: with family and friends again. So that's kind of the
Speaker 1: timeline for this to really resolve itself. We hope. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: I think this is where, if we're making predictions, this
Speaker 1: is where we start to use the words maybe you're
Speaker 1: probably a lot less the spring and summer of two.
Speaker 1: Once it starts getting warm next year, I think that's
Speaker 1: when people widely expect life to be very, very very
Speaker 1: similar to what it used to be, just in terms
Speaker 1: of what we're able to do. Obviously the world will
Speaker 1: be so much different in so many other ways, but
Speaker 1: it definitely looks very good at that point. I'm so hopeful.
Speaker 1: I saw the article that I was like, oh, right away,
Speaker 1: I gotta I have to read this because this is
Speaker 1: what everybody wants to know. When is it going to
Speaker 1: go back to normal? I'm hopeful that this timeline would work,
Speaker 1: hopefully even a little quicker than that. But these are
Speaker 1: all the things we have to work towards and get
Speaker 1: those vaccines, continue the mask wearing, social distancing so we
Speaker 1: can get to that point. It's so important right now.
Speaker 1: But Joe Pinsker, staff writer at The Atlantic, thank you
Speaker 1: very much for joining us. Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: I'm right there hoping with you too. I'm oscar a
Speaker 1: mirrors and this is been reopening America. Don't forget the
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