William Brangham:

Geoff, it's worth noting good news when it occurs. And, on COVID, there is some. The U.S. avoided the worst of a winter surge, and weekly recorded deaths from this virus are the lowest they have been since the early weeks of the pandemic.

But it is not all good news. More than 1,700 Americans still died last week because of COVID. And, for the elderly, immunocompromised and those still struggling with the little-understood long COVID, this pandemic is hardly in the rearview mirror.

For another check-in on COVID, we're joined again by epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina. She's at the University of Texas. And she writes the very informative Substack called Your Local Epidemiologist.

Katelyn, great to have you back on the "NewsHour."

What is your take on where we are in the trajectory of this pandemic? Deaths are down, as I mentioned, but there is this XBB variant that is — subvariant, that is now dominant in this country. Where are we?

Katelyn Jetelina, University of Texas Health Science Center: You know, it's a really good question.

I think we're somewhere in between a full-blown emergency, like we saw in the beginning of 2020, and somewhere before an endemic. We're just not at a state where we know what this virus is going to do. And this virus is not being very predictable.

Like you said, all metrics are nosediving right now. And that's good news. We expect that to happen with spring because of warmer weather, less holiday gatherings. But COVID continues to do its COVID thing and continues to mutate. It's what viruses do to survive. And we're paying specific attention to XBB offshoots, one in India and one in the U.K. That is causing a little disruption and some smaller waves.

And so this does have the potential to disrupt a quiet spring in the U.S., but it's still too early to know for sure, given our complex immunity landscape.

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