A man wearing a face mask walks in a city crowd. Image source: Viesturs/Adobe
Yoni Heisler
BGR News
While vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna may ultimately help put the coronavirus pandemic behind us, it’s going to take a good few months — at the very least — before we can return to a pre-pandemic way of life. In a best-case scenario, Dr. Anthony Fauci believes that we might approach “some form of normality” by September of 2021. And that timeline, of course, hinges on how many Americans choose to take a vaccine.
In the interim, the coronavirus pandemic is surging across all corners of the country. Over the past week, the U.S. has been seeing an average of 215,000 new COVID-19 infections every single day. Meanwhile, the death rate is rising rapidly and many ICUs are operating at near or full capacity. One of the reasons why the coronavirus is spreading so quickly can be traced back to pandemic fatigue, which is to say that many people at this point are simply sick and tired of adhering to coronavirus safety guidelines.
In light of the above, a new study found that reducing the standard 14-day quarantine could actually help reduce the number of coronavirus outbreaks. The rationale is that a longer quarantine can be stressful from both a psychological and economic standpoint and, in turn, can cause some people to disregard safety norms entirely. In short, a slightly shorter quarantine could help bolster compliance and reduce the impact of pandemic fatigue. Read more >>