While the country focuses on big and important issues like inflation and the price of gas, Friday’s CBS Mornings rediscovered another pressing issue: COVID. While most Americans have learned to live with the presence of the virus, Dr. Celine Gounder told the show’s hosts that people should prepare for “at least another year or two” before life gets back to normal.
Co-host Nate Burleson asked a relatively simple question, “Looking down the line, is—is-- this going to become the norm? I have friends and family are asking me, ‘Nate are we going to be taking this many shots every single year?” What do you think?”
Fellow co-host Tony Dokoupil had the same concern, “When do you—like, I have a family member who wants to go to a funeral, it’s actually my mom actually, has COVID positive. She, her brother died. Now she can't go and participate fully in the funeral on—on-- Saturday because -- when are we going to get to a point where people are like, you know what, it's like the flu you can still do big, important things in your life that are—are-- really -- that matter?”
For normal people, the answer is now. If you are sick, stay home like you would with any other illness, but otherwise life is back to normal. But, Gounder was not there to provide advice to normal people, “You're probably looking at least another year or two of, you know, more variants emerging, trying to match the vaccine to the variant, more boosters especially for older people, immunocompromised people. Eventually this will plateau and settle out. But we're not quite there yet.”
Instead of offering pushback, co-host Dana Jacobson uncritically accepted Gounder’s proclamations, “Wow. Feels like we've been saying a couple of years for a couple of years, but Dr. Gounder, thank you. We appreciate it. It's not on you. We know that.”
Elsewhere on CBS Mornings, Dokoupil accused people living in towns like Allentown, Pennsylvania, of racism and xenophobia over the decline in their white population and used January 6 as his evidence.
This segment was sponsored by LeafFilter.
Here is a transcript for the July 8 show:
CBS Mornings
7/8/2022
7:33 AM ET
NATE BURLESON: Looking down the line, is—is-- this going to become the norm? I have friends and family are asking me, “Nate—
DANA JACOBSON: When’s it the flu? When’s it, yeah.
BURLESON: --are we going to be taking this many shots every single year?” What do you think?
TONY DOKOUPIL: When do you—like, I have a family member who wants to go to a funeral, it’s actually my mom actually, has COVID positive. She, her brother died. Now she can't go and participate fully in the funeral on—on-- Saturday because -- when are we going to get to a point where people are like, you know what, it's like the flu—
BURELSON: Right
DOKOUPIL: you can still do big, important things in your life that are—are-- really -- that matter?
BURLESON: Right.
CELINE GOUNDER: I think the, this is going to take a couple years.
BURELSON: Okay
GOUNDER: You're probably looking at least another year or two of, you know, more variants emerging, trying to match the vaccine to the variant, more boosters especially for older people, immunocompromised people. Eventually this will plateau and settle out. But we're not quite there yet.
JACOBSON: Wow. Feels like we've been saying a couple of years for a couple of years, but Dr. Gounder, thank you. We appreciate it. It's not on you. We know that.
