乔·拜登(Joe Biden)总统的首次国情咨文将是一个引人注目的场景:一位无面具的总统在历史悠久的众议院会议厅向500多名受邀议员发表讲话，这些议员挤得水泄不通，只要他们首先接受测试，也可以不带面具。
病例数和住院水平大幅下降。四分之三的美国成年人现在已经完全接种了疫苗，越来越多的人得到了加强。快速测试终于可以广泛使用了。包括新型抗病毒药丸在内的救命疗法供应越来越多。
在公开展示如此乐观的情况下，拜登的讲话将标志着疫情的一个新阶段。这也是对病毒随时可能卷土重来的默认。
官员告诉ABC新闻，拜登周二将回避任何“任务完成”的暗示，甚至是病毒已经演变成一种“地方病”状态-该术语专用于描述持续存在但大多可以预测的病毒。
奥利弗·孔特雷拉斯/彭博
乔·拜登总统在白宫国宴厅就一月份的就业报告发表讲话...
相反，一名白宫官员将总统的讲话描述为注意到国家现在能够“以一种COVID不再像以前那样扰乱我们生活的方式安全地前进。”
这位官员说，总统还将“强调美国在面对不可预测的病毒时保持警惕的必要性，包括为未来的变种做好准备，”这位官员要求匿名，以便在演讲前讨论细节。
美国正在“安全地前进”可能不是民主党人在中期选举年希望看到的保险杠贴纸口号。但这也是对一种仍在全球广泛传播的病毒的更诚实的评估，尽管采取了积极的措施来遏制其传播，但这种病毒已导致至少945，688名美国人死亡。
拜登的讲话将与去年7月4日的讲话并置，在那次讲话中，他宣布美国即将从病毒中“独立”。但去年夏天，该国部分地区拒绝接种疫苗，导致秋冬季节出现新一轮COVID住院潮，最终导致教室和工作场所关闭。
前白宫COVID顾问安迪·斯拉维特(Andy Slavitt)表示，疫情“需要完成的是一个现实而乐观的框架”。“他的工作是让人们明白，我们有资源和工具来思考任何情况。”
最近几周，白宫一直在修改其COVID战略，同时与美国一些顶级疫情专家私下会面，考虑病毒可能采取的路径。拜登的新战略不是主要指望让更多的美国人接种疫苗并战胜病毒，而是承认美国人可能在未来一年里一波一波地经历COVID，联邦政府的作用将是通过支持加强注射、快速检测和有效治疗的供应来减弱其影响。
该战略的细节预计最早将于周三公布。预计拜登周二晚上只会泛泛地谈及这一新战略。
新策略出台之际，美国最高公共卫生机构表示，许多美国人现在可以不戴口罩了。上周五，美国疾病控制和预防中心(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)宣布了新的口罩指南，该指南在考虑新的COVID病例数和新的COVID住院人数的同时，也考虑了住院能力。结果是，根据目前的数据，超过70%的美国人放弃在室内戴口罩，包括在学校，根据疾病预防控制中心的指导。
似乎是为了提醒公众COVID的影响力，就在拜登周二晚上讲话的几个小时前，至少有四名立法者-马里兰州的民主党众议员杰米·拉斯金;加利福尼亚州的亚历克斯·帕迪拉和皮特·阿吉拉尔;和华盛顿的苏珊·德尔贝内宣布他们的测试呈阳性。几名共和党人说他们不会参加，因为他们首先反对必须参加PCR测试。
一位人士表示:“我们以前看到事情的进展令人惊讶。”他将这些会议描述为帮助政府准备下一步措施。
Biden to signal new phase in pandemic as learning to live safely with COVID
President Joe Biden's first State of the Union address will be a remarkable scene: A maskless president speaking to more than 500 invited lawmakers packed cheek-to-jowl in the historic House chamber, also allowed to go without masks so long as they got tested first.
Case numbers and hospitalization levels have plummeted. Three-fourths of U.S. adults are now fully vaccinated with a growing number of people getting boosted. Rapid tests are finally widely available. And life-saving therapeutics including new anti-viral pills are growing in supply.
With such optimism on public display, Biden's address will signal a new phase in the pandemic. It also will be a tacit acknowledgement that the virus, at any moment, could come roaring back to life.
Officials told ABC News that Biden on Tuesday would shy away from any suggestion of "mission accomplished" or even that the virus had morphed into an"endemic" state-- a term reserved to describe a virus that persists but is mostly predictable.
Instead, a White House official described the president's speech as noting the nation is now able to "move forward safely in a way in which COVID no longer disrupts our lives the way it has previously."
The president also will "emphasize the need for the U.S. to remain vigilant in the face of an unpredictable virus, including by preparing for future variants," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss details in advance of the speech.
That the nation is "moving forward safely" probably isn't the bumper sticker slogan Democrats were hoping for in a midterm election year. But it's also a much more honest assessment of a virus that's still widely circulating globally and which has killed at least 945,688 Americans despite aggressive efforts to contain its spread.
Biden's speech will be in juxtaposition to last year's Fourth of July speech in which he declared the nation was close to its "independence" from the virus. But pockets of the country refused to get vaccinated last summer, giving rise to fresh waves of COVID hospitalizations in the fall and winter, eventually shuttering classrooms and workplaces.
"What he needs to accomplish is a realistic and optimistic frame" for the pandemic, said Andy Slavitt, a former White House COVID adviser. "His job is to allow people to understand we have the resources and tools to think through any situation."
In recent weeks, the White House has been revising its COVID strategy while meeting privately with some of the nation's top pandemic experts to consider paths the virus might take. Instead of counting primarily on getting more Americans vaccinated and moving past the virus, Biden's new strategy would acknowledge that Americans might experience COVID in waves in the year to come and that the federal government's role would be to blunt its impact by shoring up supplies of booster shots, rapid tests and effective therapeutics.
Details of that strategy were expected as early as Wednesday. Biden was expected to touch on that new strategy only broadly Tuesday night.
The new strategy comes as the nation's top public health agency says many Americans can now go without masks. Last Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced new guidance for masks that factors in hospitalization capacity as much as it looks at new COVID case numbers and new COVID hospitalizations. The result is that based on current data more than 70% of Americans forgo masking indoors, including in schools, according to CDC guidance.
As if to remind the public of COVID's reach, just hours before Biden's speech Tuesday night, at least four lawmakers -- Democratic Reps. Jamie Raskin of Maryland; Alex Padilla and Pete Aguilar of California; and Suzan DelBene of Washington -- announced they had tested positive. Several Republicans said they wouldn't attend because they objected to having to take the PCR tests in the first place.
"We've seen things come down before only to be surprised," one person said, describing the meetings as helping the administration to prepare for next steps.
