Consider This from NPR - Americans Are Feeling Optimistic And Uncertain As Second Pandemic Summer Begins

Episode Date: June 1, 2021

From dating apps, to airline travel, to in-person high school classes, the U.S. is seeing evidence of a return to close-to-normal life.KUOW's Clare McGrane reports on how that transition has been especially complicated for a choir in Washington state. Members were at the center of one of the earliest super-spreader events in the U.S. last year. Saskia Popescu, infectious disease expert and assistant professor at George Mason University, says for as much progress as the U.S. has made against the coronavirus, many countries are still dealing with outbreaks and struggling to get vaccines.Listen to GBH reporter Tori Bedford's story on easing back into socializing here.In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Nate Raji is not an economist, but he is on online dating apps. And so when it comes to a post-pandemic U.S. economy, that's where he sees some interesting changes. It definitely seems like more people are getting out there. There's like sort of this awakening out of the hibernation, you know? Earlier in the pandemic, he did some video-only dates. Not everyone was willing to meet up in person. Now, more are. But after more than a year of social distancing, even grabbing a drink or a coffee, I mean, it can feel daunting. I just went on a date yesterday from a dating app, and I felt like it went pretty

well. But at some points, there was like lulls in the conversation. Tammy in San Diego, we're using her first name to protect her privacy, says her transition back to in-person dating has been an awkward one. Pre-pandemic when I was seeing people much more regularly, I would be able to, you know, bring up another topic of conversation quickly, but my mind isn't like firing on all cylinders as quickly as it used to. So I definitely think it'll take some time for me to be able to socialize as well as I was before. That social awkwardness, it's not just on dating apps. In high schools across the country, students are suddenly finding themselves sitting in physical classrooms next to people they've been on video calls with all year. I was sitting next to this

girl and I'm like, I don't know who you are. I don't know. That's really weird if I ask them their name. Bridget Donovan is a senior at Framingham High in Massachusetts. She spoke to GBH's Tori Bedford. Small talk is hard after the year they've been through. Someone's like, how are you? I'm like, you want the long answer or the short answer? I could say I'm good and then we end this conversation. Or I'll tell you the truth and that, you know, it's going to go into a big long thing if I'm tired, I'm stressed.

All these new, exhausting in-person interactions are a sign of how much progress the U.S. has made in fighting the virus. More than half the country has received at least one dose of the vaccine. Cases are finally consistently declining. And while Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor to the president, says we don't want to declare victory prematurely, consider this. This summer is looking very different than the last. And Americans across the country are adjusting too close to normal life and hoping that it lasts. From NPR, I'm Adi Cornish. It's Tuesday, June 1st. Support for NPR and the following message come from First Republic Bank. Easily manage accounts, schedule payments, or message your dedicated banker directly from the First Republic mobile app. Learn more at firstrepublic.com. Member FDIC. Equal housing lender.

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Maybe you remember the headlines back in March of last year. It was still early in the pandemic. We knew a lot less about COVID-19 and how it spread. Camera 7's Michael Spears begins our team coverage in Mount Vernon, where dozens of choir members got sick. Another cautionary tale right now. It's about a choir practice in Washington state that took a tragic turn. A choir practice in Mount Vernon is now being called a super spreader event.

Most Americans didn't know the term super spreader event at this point. It was one of the first in the country. The story was a wake-up call about how contagious COVID-19 could be. Now that very same choir, like all sorts of organizations around the U.S., is in the midst of a debate about how to get together safely, in person. And it's complicated by the harrowing experience they had last year. Claire McRain of KUOW has more about their story. The Skagit Valley Chorale doesn't hold auditions.

Their door is open to anyone with a passion for singing. Here they are performing at a Christmas concert a few years ago. The choir's super spreader event happened early in the pandemic, at a rehearsal on Tuesday, March 10, 2020. Ruth Backlund is one of the group's co-presidents. It was just general consensus that if you observed social distancing and washed your hands, you'd be fine. And so we did that. To the extreme,

we did that. The choir loaded up on hand sanitizer and spread out in their practice hall at a local church. They sang together for two and a half hours. Never a sneeze, never a sniffle, never a cough from anybody that was there. But just a few days later, singers started coming down with symptoms. Of the 61 people at practice, 52 were diagnosed with COVID. Several people were hospitalized, and two of the choir members died. This particular incident was one of the first strong pieces of evidence

that there could be airborne transmission. Dr. Leah Hamner works at the Skagit County Public Health Department. Because it just seems mathematically impossible that you would have 52 people get sick all at once. This event was a turning point in scientists' understanding of the virus. So now let us all say good evening with proper rest. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. A year later, the chorale is rehearsing over Zoom.

Let's do some spending some time with the altos. Let's all sing the alto line. They're planning a return to in-person rehearsals this fall, which has led to conflict over a vaccine requirement. Unless there's a medical reason that they can't do it, I hope that people would really think of it as a kindness to the people around them and protecting the group as a whole. That's Nina Tallering. She sings in the choir with her mom. Both her parents got COVID during the outbreak. It's hard for me that this has become kind of a political issue, you know, getting the vaccine, wearing a mask, and that we're not trusting in experts. Other choir members don't want to get a vaccine, among them Carolyn Comstock. I got all my kids their vaccines. I'm a believer in vaccines

for those things. But I had COVID and I had a pretty good case of it. As far as I'm concerned, I don't need a vaccine. The CDC does recommend getting vaccinated even if you have had COVID. Comstock believes it should be a personal choice. Now, that may mean that the Skagit Valley Chorale decides that I don't get to sing with them. Others say without a vaccine requirement, they will leave the group. Right now, it's unclear what decision the choir will make. But co-president Ruth Backlund hopes the love of singing will keep them together. It doesn't really matter how you feel politically, how I feel politically.

If our voices blend, it doesn't matter, does it? The Skagit Valley Chorale will be singing together come fall. The question now is, who will still be in the choir? And who will walk away? Claire McGrane of member station KUOW. So all across the country, Americans are doing what the Skagit Valley Corral has done, getting back to the activities that brought them joy before the pandemic, doing their best to evaluate risks and anticipate the trajectory of the virus.

My colleague Mary Louise Kelly had a conversation with Saskia Popescu about this inflection point between optimism for the summer ahead and the difficult year we've all lived through. Popescu is an infectious disease expert and assistant professor at George Mason University and says that death toll approaching 600,000 Americans can't be denied. Honestly, I think the thing I keep going back to is, for those of us that work in pandemic response and just pandemic preparedness in general, there was this gut feeling during the Trump administration that if we had a biological event, specifically an outbreak, we knew it would be tough because the way that the administration had approached science and public health, but no one anticipated it would be so bad and just such an uphill battle every

single day. A lot of it truly was preventable. If we could have gotten ahead of this and really prioritize science and public health, those numbers I truly believe would be drastically different. Where do you think we are in the arc of this? I've noticed people starting to struggle with what tends to talk about the pandemic. And like, is it starting to feel in the rear view mirror to you? Or do you feel like there's still significant hurdles to overcome ahead? You know, we have 40% of the total population fully vaccinated. That's a very exciting thing. And it feels like we're starting to get ahead of this. But then I see the daily numbers of vaccines administered just declining and we're struggling to get more people vaccinated to get them to want to be vaccinated. But that's also this very U.S.

focus. I was just discussing this with a friend because it feels like everybody in the U.S. is just, oh, COVID's over, and the rest of the world is struggling to get vaccines. You know, India is still dealing with like 200,000 cases a day. We've got really severe situations in Argentina and Colombia and Brazil. And I, you know, I can't help but think we're starting to become very U.S.-focused with this. And this is truly a global issue. Looking overseas, where, as you noted, the situation looks so much worse in a lot of places than it now does in the U.S., what are the responsibilities of the United States when it comes to helping the rest of the world through this next phase of the pandemic? Well, I absolutely think that we do have a role in this. We don't want

people to just become myopic about this and get very US focused. Global health is a huge piece of this. As we just saw with questions regarding the variants that are coming out, the B.1.617 was first identified in India. There were a lot of questions about increased transmissibility. And every single time we identify a variant, we ask if it's going to impact, I should say, the vaccine effectiveness. And if we're asking ourselves those questions, but we're not investing in global public health and global disease mitigation and vaccine distribution, then we have bigger issues at hand because we're never going to get ahead of this if we don't start supporting other countries in mitigation and vaccination. I wonder what you're reflecting on as somebody who has been studying and speaking about the

pandemic over this last year. Oh, that's a big question. I think right now I'm really reflecting on the mental health struggles that we're all going through right now. I think there's a lot of fatigue, a lot of exhaustion, and some trauma we've all experienced. So I reflect on that and how we can better support each other. But as we've discussed, I simply am so worried and concerned that we're not thinking about the global context of that. And it really worries me. So I'm trying to just really be mindful of that. Right now, there's so much discussion about the progress we've made in the U.S., but we still have a long ways to go. And that's going to mean supporting people from a mental health perspective on the long term and

for long COVID, but also globally. Saskia Popescu, infectious disease expert and assistant professor at George Mason University, speaking with my colleague, Mary Louise Kelly. You're listening to Consider This from NPR. I'm Adi Cornish.