Johns Hopkins Prof. Dr. Adalja: ‘Have to Get to’ ‘Post-Pandemic World,’ and If We Don’t Take Off-Ramps Now, I Don’t Know When

On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Katy Tur Reports,” Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Dr. Amesh Adalja stated that “we have to get to the post-pandemic world,” and that if we don’t take “off-ramps now, I don’t know what the threshold would be, what would be the metric that we would use.”

Adalja said, “I know that one-way masking is something that we do all the time in hospitals. That’s what healthcare workers have been doing throughout this pandemic, and it does work, especially when you’re wearing a well-fitted N95 or N95 equivalent. So, I think that one-way masking does work in that situation. And the immunocompromised, who are always going to be at heightened risk for COVID-19, just like they’re at heightened risk for any respiratory virus — and they’re going to have to be cautious. This is a new threat that they have to deal with, and it’s important for immunocompromised people to think about wearing masks in those situations. It’s also important for them to have a plan to use drugs like Paxlovid or monoclonal antibodies if they get sick.”

He continued, “But the overarching point is that we can’t continue to think this is 2020, when it’s 2022 and we have a whole slew of medical countermeasures to tame COVID-19. Even if there’s still going to be some risk to the immunocompromised, we can’t get that risk down to zero. And if we don’t actually take actions now, off-ramps now, I don’t know what the threshold would be, what would be the metric that we would use. Because I think we have to get to the post-pandemic world, and it’s not going to be 2019, no matter how much we wish it would be.”

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