Most Americans say pandemic will be over when virus becomes comparable to seasonal flu

In Virginia Beach, a mother is sending frantic emails to her school board, begging officials to reverse their mask-optional policy to protect the life of her 14-year-old daughter who has a heart condition. In Arlington, a teenage girl broke down sobbing this week as she asked her parents for help navigating the suddenly thorny social dynamics between masked and unmasked friends — leading her mother to pull her from school for a mental health day.

And in Chesapeake, Va., on Tuesday, the first day her school district stopped requiring masks in accordance with Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s mask-optional executive order, ninth-grade English teacher Amanda Lambert awoke unsure whether she would go to work. Lambert was thinking about what her doctor told her: that because of her blood-clotting disorder, she probably would not live through “the next round” of coronavirus variants if she contracted the illness and had to go on a ventilator. “Being intubated,” she thought to herself, “is signing your own death certificate.”

All across Virginia, similar scenes of fear, division and chaos played out this week, as teachers reentered classrooms where children were suddenly allowed to appear maskless. The change in rules is due to Youngkin’s executive order, issued on his first day in office but which took effect Monday, asserting that parents have the right to decide whether their children wear face coverings in school.

The federal government in January launched a website so people in the United States can order free at-home antigen test kits in response to the surge in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations.

But many people remain confused about these rapid tests and how they work. Here’s how reliable these tests are and what your next move should be if you’re looking to get tested.

What is an at-home rapid antigen test, and how does it differ from a PCR test?

Most at-home tests are rapid antigen tests that look for specific proteins of the virus to detect infection. These tests usually provide results in 10 to 15 minutes using samples collected with a nasal swab, but tests might differ in how the samples are used, so pay attention to the instructions. The swab also usually doesn’t go up the nose as far as the infamous deep nasal swab that feels like “being stabbed in the brain.”

At-home antigen tests can be less reliable than PCR tests, a type of molecular test that looks for the virus’s genetic material (RNA). PCR tests are able to detect lower levels of the virus that antigen tests might miss.

Kayla and Nathan Dahl were fast asleep when their toddler approached their bed one recent morning to utter two of the few words he knows so far — words that would save his family from danger.

“Mama, hot,” Brandon, who turns 2 on Sunday, said while tugging his mother’s foot.

Initially, said Kayla, 28, she thought her son just wanted his pajamas removed. But seconds later, she realized what her youngest child was trying to tell her: The family’s one-story house in Alvord, Tex., was engulfed in flames.

None of the smoke detectors in their home went off. And the Dahls, who had recently tested positive for the coronavirus, hadn’t been able to smell the smoke filling their home.

“We were still recovering from covid, so neither of us had our sense of taste and smell,” Kayla told The Washington Post in an interview.

HOUSTON — The El Campo Impact 13-and-under girls volleyball team was down by one point in its opening tournament of the year. It was Kamryn Thompson’s turn to serve, and it was a winner. Cheers and screams rose from the packed crowd of hundreds of maskless coaches, parents and siblings in a mid-January gathering that felt as if the coronavirus had never hit.

About 15 miles away, Gabriela Hernandez was trapped behind a glass partition in a pediatric intensive care unit jammed with severely ill children battling covid-19. Her daughter Kimberly, who is immunocompromised, had tested positive for the virus, and now her body was going haywire. Hernandez and the hospital’s medical teams were frustrated about the choices that have helped propel the virus’ spread and put vulnerable people such as Kimberly at risk.

The split-screen reality of American life amid a pandemic has never been as stark as at this moment, in the 23rd month of a crisis that people had expected would long be over.

“I know people who have died because of this and people don’t believe it,” Hernandez said. “You have to believe it. You have to know that this is happening.”

The point at which a pandemic ends is not a discrete event marked by a celebration in the streets like at the conclusion of a war. It’s more of a gradual process in which humans who have developed some immunity learn to live with a virus that has become less lethal. Some argue that time has come, citing evidence that the omicron variant is causing less severe disease than the delta variant in many people. Others point to overwhelmed hospitals and a climbing death toll to implore people to continue taking precautions to get through this surge and then reassess.

When the Biden administration began requiring insurers to pay for at-home coronavirus tests, it left out a group especially vulnerable to the virus. Medicare, the federal insurance system with 64 million older or disabled Americans, was not included in the order, and the absence has triggered a fusillade of complaints.

Members of Congress and advocates for older Americans have dispatched vehement letters to President Biden and his health secretary in recent days, urging the administration to alter Medicare’s rules so it will uniformly pay for the antigen tests consumers use at home. Meanwhile, thousands of people on Medicare have called a federal hotline about the tests, confused about what is covered.

Under such pressure, officials inside the administration “are working around-the-clock, trying to figure out what is possible,” said Meena Seshamani, Medicare director at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

Advocates contend that the agency, which has made it easier for people with Medicare to see doctors through telehealth during the pandemic, should be flexible about covering at-home tests. But Medicare law does not make that simple. The fundamental obstacle is that the statute does not let the traditional version of Medicare — the insurance for nearly 6 in 10 people in the program — include over-the-counter health products, such as coronavirus rapid tests, among its benefits. Separate Medicare drug benefits are for prescriptions.

TORONTO — A convoy of Canadian truckers and their supporters began arriving in Ottawa on Friday to protest a federal vaccine requirement for cross-border truckers, and other coronavirus public health measures, as police warned of social media actors inciting violence and “lone wolf individuals” seeking to disrupt it.

Canada and the United States announced last year that they would require truck drivers entering their respective countries to be fully vaccinated. Canada implemented its measure Jan. 15, while the U.S. requirement started Saturday. Most cross-border trade between the two countries occurs over land.

The convoy’s size is unclear, and most of it is expected to arrive Saturday. Polls show that vaccine mandates have broad support here. About 90 percent of Canadian truckers are vaccinated, according to the transport minister. The Canadian Trucking Alliance said it doesn’t support protests “on public roadways, highways and bridges.”

Suliman reported from London.

The omicron variant pushed the nation’s coronavirus case rates to more than triple their historic highs with shocking speed. There was hope for equally fast relief as rates in some areas quickly declined. From the national view, the trend seemed straight down.

Across the country, however, the pattern is more complex. Some states still have rising case rates.

Cases in the Northeast have dropped more than half from the January peak. Even with the drop, case rates are far higher than before omicron. Rising rates in the West swept past the Northeast two weeks ago. Now, the Northeast has the lowest case rate of those four major regions, and the South has started to decline as well.

The doctor opens the front door. Never mind introductions. “I know who you are. Do you think these guys would let you get this close to me, if we didn’t know who you are?” Across the street is a security agent in Nikes, a badge on his belt. He’s not the only one watching.

“I mean, isn’t it amazing?” the doctor says. “Here I am, with cameras around my house.”

The house is modest for Washington: stucco and brick, cozy and cramped. No obvious tokens of celebrity or esteem. Icicles on the dormant hot tub out back. Bottles of red wine and olive oil on the kitchen counter.

“It’s messy because, as you know, in covid times, nobody comes over. So nobody cares.”

People are coming by outside, though. They are snapping photos. Two years into the pandemic Anthony S. Fauci remains the face of America’s pandemic response, and on this cold Saturday in January thousands of marchers are descending on the capital to rally against vaccine mandates. Are some of them staking out his home?

The security agents “usually leave at a certain time,” the doctor says. “But tonight they’re going to sleep in our guest room.”