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Shifts in public opinion can become evident in small, surprising ways.

I could sense a turning point in people’s reaction to the pandemic when I watched a TV report on Super Bowl Sunday about a Waimanalo backyard party.

Even though the coronavirus is still infecting and killing residents, the joyous behavior seemed to signal to the pandemic. They demonstrated a palpable lifting of fear.

The purpose of the outdoor Super Bowl party held in film actor Kaui Kauhi’s yard was to enjoy the game and raise money for a boxing program Kauhi started for young kids in Waimanalo. Everyone was maskless, standing shoulder to shoulder, eating mounds of noodles and thick slices of prime rib and having fun.

“With the Covid issue, it’s just awesome to be outside again. Pretty soon pau. Pretty soon pau. It’s great to be normal. Last year we couldn’t party,” party emcee Champ Kaneshiro said as he hugged guest Frankie Kepa.

Kaneshiro moved 6 feet away from Kepa. “Stay like this last year,” he said before moving right next to Kepa. “This year we stay like this.”

This sense that the crisis phase of the pandemic is over is evident in many parts of the world and all over the mainland. Elected officials are lifting protective restrictions. Hawaii is the only state left with an indoor mask mandate, although officials are beginning to ease restrictions at the county level.

Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi said Thursday he expects on March 5 to lift the Safe Access Hawaii program’s proof of vaccination or negative test requirements to enter restaurants, bars and gyms. Mayor Michael Victorino ended the Safe Access requirements on Maui starting Monday.

Optimism is sparked by the pandemic’s declining infection rates with better immune responses from vaccinations or prior infection, widespread access to testing to reduce the spread and new antiviral medicines.

Historically, many pandemics have ended when people decided they were not afraid anymore — even when the disease persisted. They feel they have endured enough and it’s time to move on.

1918 Example

That’s how the global influenza of 1918 ended, when populations — exhausted from the savagery of World War I trench warfare and dismayed by the flu’s death toll of at least 50 million people worldwide — opted out of the dark to .

The virus continued to mutate and to kill people — at least 1,489 dead in Hawaii in 1920 where cases peaked later than the mainland — but as the disease also called “la grippe” became less lethal, .

Science writer Gina Kolata : “According to historians, pandemics typically have two types of endings: the medical, which occurs when the incidence and death rates plummet, and the social, when the epidemic of fear about the disease wanes.”

At a certain point in pandemics, people decide on their own they will no longer dutifully rely on government mandates and instead are ready to live with their own level of risk.

“Within the set of legitimate strategies, the choice of strategy is less important than whether or not people follow it,” wrote Michael Bang Petersen,  on Covid-19 policy.

Interestingly, Denmark has the highest per capita Covid-19 infection rates in the world, yet on Feb. 1 the country , announcing it would no longer consider the virus “a socially critical disease.”

Not everyone will be happy with the lifting of restrictions. To some it will seem like a slap in the face when infections are still high and they have been trying hard for two years to follow the rules to keep cases low.

“The choice of strategy is less important than whether or not people follow it.” — Michael Bang Petersen

And many medical experts fear that restrictions are being lifted too soon in response to public demand, rather than data, when the disease is still active and more lethal variants may be on the horizon.

“Society may want the virus to end, but I am not convinced the virus is ready to let us go,” said Dr. Tim Brown, an infectious disease expert at the East-West Center.

In a phone conversation Friday, Brown said he sees at least two new variants coming to Hawaii later this year. “We don’t know how dangerous they will be,” he said.

The omicron variant was milder because it moved into a stricken person’s upper respiratory tract rather than directly into lung tissue. A new variant could attack the lungs.

The California Factor

Brown said that if government officials here lack the political will to retain restrictions, they should follow California’s lead: find better surveillance methods to give people early warnings of the next lethal variant and give them tools to effectively protect themselves when it comes.

Better surveillance methods in Hawaii would include having hospitals get a more accurate handle on case numbers by testing not only symptomatic people but asymptomatic people as well, Brown said. Also, more extensive surveying of sewage is needed to get an early warning of where new waves of infection are showing up in specific areas.

Some key features outlined in California’s plan to respond quickly to future surges and new variants of Covid include maintaining a stockpile of 75 million high-quality masks, increasing wastewater surveillance in all areas, being poised to perform at least 500,000 PCR or antigen tests per day as well as having enough home tests for residents and having supplies of the most clinically effective anti-viral drugs readily available.

Also is a call to make sure that communities disproportionately affected by Covid in the past, such as low-income groups and older adults, have equal access to preventive measures and treatments.

Going forward, Dr. Jonathan Dworkin, a clinical infectious disease doctor working at The Queen’s Health Systems North Hawaii Community Hospital, said it is important for officials not to give the public false reassurance when the virus remains dangerous and could become even more dangerous in the future.

“How many times in the past year have we watched politicians announce that the pandemic is nearly over, only to backtrack when the situation suddenly deteriorates and the hospitals are threatened? This has been dishonest communication. People should see through it,” said Dworkin, who also is the author of the book “.”

He said he’s cautious after working in the hospital during five different surges. “People should understand this is ongoing, and we need to continue to grapple with it. That’s not what anyone wants to hear, but that’s the truth.”

What is different now is that as we continue to grapple with Covid-19, we at least know more about it than we did two years ago and that should make a difference in the future.