COVID emergency ends but not everyone is convinced

RANDOLPH, Mass — It was, at one time, one of the busiest Covid testing sites in the Boston area.

“Right before the holidays, I remember our parking lot was full of cars,” said Elizabeth Ann LaRosee, Director of Community Programs for the Town of Randolph. “I think it was up the street a mile.”

LaRosee remembers one night when workers outside the town’s Intergenerational Center tested more than a thousand people for Covid.

Today, the parking lot is empty -- as are other sites involved in the Stop the Spread campaign.

“Just a really big deal,” she said. “But we got it done. We did what we had to do.”

What everyone was forced to do more than three years ago is confront a pandemic threat fueled by a novel virus. And it was rough-going at the start. Hundreds of Massachusetts residents died every week in those early days -- and testing was not universally available. In addition, medical facilities began running out of supplies -- such that at some hospitals garbage bags were in use as protective gear.

But all that is now in the past.

Thursday, May 11, 2023: the Covid National Emergency is over. Masks will come off -- even in health institutions. Things will officially get back to some kind of normal.

“I think this is an appropriate time to end the emergency,” said Daniel Kuritzkes, MD, an infectious disease physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “We’ve seen a dramatic decline in the number of cases, the wastewater levels and the number of deaths and we can’t be in an emergency situation forever.”

Still, Kuritzkes is concerned about what the end to the emergency could mean -- including the possible loss of free home tests.

“I think that the fact the tests are no longer going to be free is going to create an impediment for people,” he said. “And it also has the potential to exacerbate inequities in care because obviously people less able to afford those tests, people uninsured, will be more challenged in their ability to access tests.”

And testing will continue to be an important tool in keeping Covid quelled. Because it’s still with us -- and is still a potential threat.

“One thing we’ve learned over the last three years is don’t try to predict what the virus might do,” said Kuritzkes.

Still, he’s optimistic.

“As the number of people worldwide who have Covid decreases, the opportunities for a new strain will decrease as well,” Kuritzkes said. “But that doesn’t mean a new variant couldn’t pop up somewhere and explode just like Omicron.”

In fact, the White House has been presented with Covid disease models which estimate a 10 to 40% chance an entirely new variant could arise in the next 24 months with similar spreading power to Omicron.

“I think the appropriate way of characterizing the Covid pandemic is to say we’ve entered the endemic phase,” Kuritzkes said. “Enough people have some level of immunity, whether because of past infection or vaccination or both, that even when people become infected they are no longer at high risk of getting seriously ill.”

Still, some are taking few chances.

LaRosee said she continues to mask-up when grocery shopping or in similarly crowded places.

Jane Hendrickson, a Randolph resident, is not ready to declare independence from Covid, either.

“Officially it may be over, but I don’t know that it’s over,” she said. I think it’s still ongoing. Yes, we can take off our masks, but let’s be sensible about it. If you’re around a crowd of people then maybe it’s best to keep the mask on.”

Hendrickson said some positive things came out of the pandemic -- including people caring more about one another. But her Covid story is one of intense loss.

“Unfortunately I lost two brothers and a sister,” she said. “Very painful but, you know, it’s part of life. I know they’re in heaven so all I can do is just wait to see them again. It hurts. But it’s real. Life is real -- and you have to go on.”

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