Early in the pandemic, Ryan Wilson was careful to take precautions — wearing a mask, not really socializing, doing more of his shopping online. The 38-year-old father and seafood butcher from Casselberry, Florida, says he relaxed a bit after getting vaccinated last year. He had a few friends over and saw his parents more, while making sure to still mask up at places like the grocery store. The recent virus surge hasn’t caused him to change his behavior much, because he’s vaccinated and has read that the variant causes less severe illness. And, like many, Wilson has come to believe COVID-19 is probably never fully going away. “It’ll become endemic and we’ll be stuck with it forever,” he says. “It’s frustrating, but what can you do about it?” Many Americans agree that they’re going to “be stuck with it forever” — or, at the least, for a long time. A poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that few — just 15% — say they’ll consider the pandemic over only when COVID-19 is largely eliminated. By contrast, 83% say they’ll feel the pandemic is over when it’s largely a mild illness. The poll shows that 59% of Americans think it’s essential that they personally be vaccinated against COVID-19 to feel safe participating in public activities. But, underscoring what authorities call alarmingly low COVID-19 vaccination rates in U.S. children ages 5 to 11, just 37% of parents consider it essential that their children are vaccinated before they return to normal. And although boosters provide significantly better protection against COVID-19, especially the omicron variant, than a two-shot course of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, just 47% of Americans think it’s essential that they get one. Wilson, in Florida, said that while he is vaccinated, he doesn’t plan to have his 5-year-old daughter vaccinated because he’s heard the odds of healthy children suffering anything more than cold symptoms are low. In Minneapolis, 36-year-old public health researcher Colin Planalp got his 6-year-old son vaccinated as soon as he could. “Kids can get really sick from COVID,” he says, faulting health authorities for not making that more clear to the public. Although kids tend to fare better than adults, experts say they still can suffer from serious illness and long-term health impacts from the virus. The poll shows more Americans are taking precautionary measures against the virus than before the omicron surge. Overall, 64% now say they are always or often avoiding large groups and 65% are wearing face masks around others, both up from 57% in December. Sixty percent say they are regularly avoiding nonessential travel, up from 53% one month ago. That level of precaution is the highest since last spring, before millions of Americans were fully vaccinated. Early in the pandemic, Planalp and his wife worked at home for months on end, and kept their young son home. But when they got vaccinated they allowed themselves to go out more, to visit family out of state, even to work part-time in the office. Then the delta variant hit, and they ratcheted up their precautions. With omicron, they upped them even more. “I’ve switched to wearing N95 masks because I’m no longer confident in the regular cloth masks, and I hardly go out at all anymore,” Planalp says. “We’ve […]

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