REPLY HAZY — A conversation between POLITICO’s former health editor Joanne Kenen and deputy health care editor Lauren Morello: So Lauren, Virginia and New Jersey told us that voters don’t like Covid. Does Covid care? Not at all, Joanne. I’m as tired of Covid as anyone, but the virus will keep doing its thing whether or not we acknowledge its presence or act to limit the threat. Many scientists think the virus will become endemic — that even after the pandemic ends, the SARS-CoV-2 virus will still circulate at some level. So we have to find a way to live with it. Both of us have been worriers — one of the burdens of being a health reporter is we understood early on how bad this could get, although it’s been worse than even most of us worriers expected. But it’s really hard to figure out where things are now, particularly with the holidays coming. Overall cases and deaths are dropping — but we’ve been here before. Yep. Holidays are a wild card — so many people travel for Thanksgiving, and then there’s Christmas, Hanukkah, school winter breaks. We saw cases surge last year because of all that mixing over the holidays. I think we’ll see some kind of bump this year, too, but I’m hoping it won’t be as bad because vaccines are widely available now. As of last night, everyone down to 5 years old is eligible. How big a turning point is the vaccination eligibility for 5-11? A lot of parents have been so eager for this moment — but others, including some who are vaccinated themselves, are nervous. They want to wait until there’s more data. The hesitancy among parents follows a familiar pattern: Vaccine hesitancy peaks before a group is eligible for the shot, then decreases over time. I think we’ll see that here — but the decline may be slower than with teens or adults. Many parents have absorbed the idea that Covid is less of a threat to kids. But as the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel made clear Tuesday, that’s all relative. An analysis by CDC staff estimates that Covid has caused far more deaths per year in the pre-teen kids than other familiar childhood illnesses like chickenpox, rotavirus and rubella did before we had vaccines for them. The bottom line is that individual kids will benefit — and every little bit of vaccination helps the country’s chances of beating down this virus. Twenty-eight million kids are now able to get the vaccine. So if all 28 million got vaccinated — which of course won't happen — it would make schools a lot safer and less stressful, and kids wouldn’t be spreading the virus to older people as much, either. But even with a lower number of kids getting vaccinated, it should be another way of making the virus more manageable, right? Also, I saw someone on Twitter talking about this, I forgot who but someone in public health — slumber parties could come back! (Though I think I’d require rapid tests along with the sleeping bags.) Luckily my kids are way, way, way beyond that stage. Slumber parties were exhausting. Definitely. We need to use all the tools we have — especially vaccines, and at least for now, indoor masks. But then — bring on the pillow fights. Let’s go back to that point you made about the coronavirus being endemic. That’s a scary word to people. It conjures up a permanent pandemic and all the bad stuff we’ve been living with, physically, economically, emotionally. But endemic means it’s here to stay. It doesn’t mean it’s peak pandemic now and forever, right? It doesn’t mean no slumber parties ever ever ever? Nope. It means the virus will still be here, still infecting people, but at lower levels. There are a lot of questions still about what that looks like. If the virus behaves like measles, some countries might be able to vaccinate it away while other countries still get outbreaks. If the vaccines keep protecting us over the long term, infections might become milder. For most people, they’d be more of a nuisance than a danger. But for now, even as things seem to be looking better, we’ll still have outbreaks. Colorado’s having one right now. And to control outbreaks, we’ll need to get better at testing, at surveillance, at springing into action to prevent further spread. But what about drugs? We expect the FDA to consider Merck’s new drug molnupiravir — I’m never going to learn to spell that without looking it up. And if that one works, we could have other drugs soon, as good or better. Should we tell Nightly readers I just had to fix your spelling? One O, one U. Molnupiravir. Say that five times fast. The name comes from Mjolnir, Thor’s hammer. It’s a pill designed to be taken at home, twice a day for five days, started within five days of symptoms. In trials, it cut the risk of severe illness and death in half. It looks really, really good, and it could be authorized as early as December, which would give us another layer of protection. We’re going to need drugs to dig our way out of this. Some people will never get vaccinated, but they’ll catch the virus. A small slice of vaccinated people will get significant breakthrough infections. And this coronavirus still might have pandemic potential — just like we worry about a pandemic from some of the nastier flu viruses. The frustrating thing is that we’ll really only figure this out with time. That’s one of the worst parts about Covid still — the uncertainty. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at lmorello@politico.com and jkenen@jhu.com, or on Twitter at @lmorello_dc and @joannekenen.
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