Assessment

The prediction was that once COVID-19 vaccines became available (late 2020 / early 2021), conditions in the United States would improve and 2021 would be “a much, much better year” than 2020.

Key facts:

• Vaccine availability and rollout

  • The first COVID-19 vaccine (Pfizer–BioNTech) received FDA Emergency Use Authorization on December 11, 2020; Moderna followed on December 18, 2020, and Johnson & Johnson in February 2021.
  • By mid-April 2021, all U.S. adults were eligible for vaccination, and by the end of 2021, a majority of U.S. adults had been fully vaccinated.

• Public health and social conditions vs. 2020

  • 2020 saw the initial pandemic shock: widespread lockdowns, school and business closures, extremely limited testing early on, and no vaccines.
  • In 2021, after vaccine rollout, many U.S. states substantially relaxed restrictions, schools and universities widely reopened for in‑person learning, travel and entertainment resumed to a large extent, and economic activity rebounded strongly compared with 2020.
  • While variants such as Delta did cause serious waves and 2021 still involved significant illness and death, the overall level of social and economic normalcy and available medical protection was clearly higher than in 2020.

Conclusion

The prediction was not that the pandemic would be over, but that conditions would improve once vaccines came to market and that 2021 would be significantly better than 2020 overall in the U.S. That is broadly what occurred (greater medical protection, fewer restrictions, and substantial economic and social recovery compared with 2020), even though COVID remained a major problem.

Result: right – The general direction and qualitative comparison (2021 much better than 2020 in the U.S. once vaccines arrived) was borne out by subsequent events.