The Cold War Against Covid Has Begun
Q&A with Scott Gottlieb, former head of the FDA, on virus variants, vaccination rates and next winter.
Vaccination rates will help determine Covid’s path.
Photographer: Alex Wong/Getty Images
The Covid-19 pandemic is fading, and it sure feels as if life is returning to normal. But we have been warned: Covid-19 is unlikely to disappear.
To figure out what to expect next and how to deal with it, Bloomberg Opinion columnist Michael R. Strain spoke with Dr. Scott Gottlieb, his colleague at the American Enterprise Institute. Gottlieb, a Pfizer board member, investor and former head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, is author of “Uncontrolled Spread: Why Covid-19 Crushed Us and How We Can Defeat the Next Pandemic.” This is the first of two excerpts from their conversation.
Michael R. Strain: The public discussion seems to be very focused on this summer — on the virus receding, states rescinding virus-related restrictions, localities and businesses dropping mask mandates, and on things returning to normal. But we're not necessarily out of the woods yet.