It's another discombobulating moment in the pandemic, with conflicting signs of where the virus is heading and what people should do about it on a daily basis. Here's how to cope.

Transcript

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

And it is another moment of confusion and uncertainty in the pandemic. The omicron surge is fading fast, but more than 2,200 people are still dying every day. But many states are lifting mask mandates, but federal officials say it is too soon, that case rates are still too high.

Well, all this has left a lot of heads, including mine, spinning, so I want to bring in NPR health correspondent Rob Stein to talk about it. Hey, Rob.

ROB STEIN, BYLINE: Hey, Mary Louise.

KELLY: So all these optimistic messages, easing of restrictions, but then, you know, as I nodded to it, at the national level, public health officials are still sounding so cautious. How are we supposed to make sense of it?

STEIN: Yeah. You know, I don't know about you, Mary Louise, but I'm finding this a very discombobulating moment. And, you know, all I've been doing for the last two years is spend my days dissecting every twist and turn in the pandemic. But one moment it seems like everyone is kind of getting on with their lives and putting the pandemic behind them, the next moment, it feels like omicron and whatever variant may come next means it's still far from safe out there. So, you know, I don't know what to do, so I do what I do, and I started calling the experts, you know, psychologists...

KELLY: Data to the rescue.

STEIN: Yeah, hopefully - sociologists, medical anthropologists, to try to figure out what to think. And here's what Ayelet Fishbach said. She's a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago.

AYELET FISHBACH: You wake up in the morning and you wonder, maybe we are all right and no one told me, or maybe it is terrible and I should not do my shopping in person. It's very confusing.

STEIN: So, you know, Fishbach says it's not surprising that a lot of us don't know what to think or do - wear my mask, stop wearing my mask - and maybe even feeling more anxious than ever because of it.

KELLY: It's almost reassuring to hear that the officials and experts are...

STEIN: Yeah.

KELLY: ...Confused as well.

STEIN: Right.

KELLY: I mean, part of it is what she's getting at - you know, the conflicting advice - wear my mask, don't wear my mask. Just tell me. Is that part of the problem here?

STEIN: Yeah. Yeah. That's a big part of the problem. You know, no one seems to be on the same page, and the advice - it seems to change all the time. Monica Schoch-Spana is a medical anthropologist at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

MONICA SCHOCH-SPANA: The sense that you're standing on shifting sands does put you in an awkward situation about, what do I do or what don't I do? And what they told me yesterday may be different from what they're telling me today.

STEIN: And she says that's compounded by the fact that a pandemic is unlike other traumatic events like natural disasters. There's no obvious beginning, middle and end, and there are no obvious cues we can judge for ourselves to assess the risk.

SCHOCH-SPANA: Think of, you know, a massive hurricane in the Gulf Coast. There's the storm surge. There's the winds blowing, battering a glass window. And then as things are getting better, you can see the debris getting picked up. And so the invisibility of the pathogen is a problem.

STEIN: And we're left to kind of figure things out for ourselves, but, you know, not with much clear guidance out there.

KELLY: Well, let me make a stand here, Rob, for optimism.

STEIN: OK.

KELLY: Assume the omicron surge continues to fade, assuming the pandemic continues this transition to endemic, won't it get better? Won't that help?

STEIN: Yeah. You know, that might help us get back to something more like a normal existence. But, you know, we're nowhere near the pandemic becoming endemic yet. And even when it does, and if it does, the virus won't be gone. It'll still be with us, infecting, sickening and killing people. It'll hopefully just be more manageable.

But we will still have to navigate day-to-day decisions about risk, and that could easily vary over time and in different, you know, seasons. And, you know, there's always the ongoing threat of new variants. Jay Van Bavel is a psychologist at New York University.

JAY VAN BAVEL: I think of the pandemic at this point kind of like an old horror movie where you keep thinking, you know, your nemesis, the evil person chasing you is dead, and they always seem to come back and be right there with you. And that's what's happened with these mutations, is every time it feels like we're kind of moving into normal life again, there's a setback.

KELLY: Pandemic as horror movie - that feels about right. Rob Stein, thank you for your reporting.

STEIN: Sure; you bet, Mary Louise. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

Tags: COVID risk  Your Health