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Geoff: The U.S. Is on the brink
of reaching one million covid
that's since the start of the
pandemic over two years ago.
As this grim milestone
approaches, health experts
nationwide are debating whether
a new phase of the pandemic has
already started.
I spoke with an expert on this
topic.
Dr. Cindy Prins is the assistant
Dean at the university of
Florida college of public
health.
It's great to have you with us.
And Dr. Prins, can you explain
for us where we are in the life
of this pandemic?
I ask the question because Dr.
Fauci said on the newshour this
past week that the country is
out of the pandemic for --
phase.
He later clarified and said that
he should have said the acute
pandemic phase.
You, as I understand it, say
we're not yet in the endemic
So why not?
Where are we?
Help us make sense of it.
Dr. Prins: Yeah, we're certainly
in a better place than we were a
couple of months ago when we
were dealing with omicron.
But we're still dealing with a
pandemic.
We're certainly still in a
pandemic phase.
And I say that because we're
still dealing with cases.
We're seeing cases actually go
up in several places in the
these other subvariants.
Then also because we're seeing
hospitalizations increase.
And then there's always the
potential for a new variant.
And I just don't think that
we've necessarily settled into a
phase where we have a regular
and low level of cases that
we're looking for eventually.
Geoff: So what will it take then
to get to a sort of endemic
normalcy where people get their
covid shot every year, just like
they get their flu shot every
year and we live with it?
Dr. Prins: I think we're we need
to go for that is, number one,
for people to get their covid
shots.
That's first of all, we don't
have enough vaccination coverage
within our country.
And then certainly we know that
booster coverage is fairly low
for those who are eligible for
boosters.
So that's the primary thing that
we need to do.
And secondary is that we need
that vaccine coverage to also be
high throughout other countries
in the world.
And I say that because this is
how variants develop.
When you have increase in cases
in other places, you have the
potential for people to
essentially create a variant
within themselves, and that can
easily be spread to the U.S., to
other countries, because our
travel is just so fluid
nowadays.
Geoff: I'm interested to get
your perspective as a public
health expert.
When you look at the way the
U.S. Has handled this pandemic
as a case study, when you're
talking to your students -- what
did the U.S. Get right and what
did we get wrong?
Where is there room for
improvement as we move forward?
Dr. Prins: I think one place
that there's room for
improvement is just in the
preparation.
So obviously we didn't
necessarily have the foresight
to know this pandemic was coming
at this very time.
But certainly we had the
foresight to know what we needed
to do to prepare for a pandemic.
And I think we were a little
lost there in the ppe, in the
testing and all of those things
that really didn't go well at
the beginning of the pandemic.
I think the other part of it is
the communication, and a lot has
been said about that.
But being able to communicate
with people, what are the
precautions they need to take,
why they need to take them
and having that open
communication and then being
very honest when communication
has to pivot, when we have to
make different recommendations
because we're constantly
learning during this pandemic.
Geoff: Is the U.S. Prepared for
the next pandemic?
I've spoken to public health
officials who say it's not a
matter of if, it's a matter of
when the next one hits.
Dr. Prins: I think that's a
concern.
You know, what happens when we
have any kind of public health
crisis is during the crisis, we
tend to put a lot of money, a
lot of effort and a lot of
thought into what's going on.
Once that crisis abates, we tend
to forget about it.
And we've seen that happen in
many different cases.
And so I do worry that we're not
going to continue this
preparedness front when we're
looking at a new pandemic coming
forth.
There are a lot of things that
we need in place still.
I mean, if I even think about
things like medical records and
being able to share those
nationally, vaccine records.
We've learned a lot about
testing and mass vaccination,
but, you know, being able to
continue that and improve on
that and apply that to a new
pandemic, I'm not quite sure
we're ready for that yet.
Geoff: Dr. Cindy Prins, it's
great to have your insights.