“Things are going to take a downward turn as soon as the air starts getting chillier,” Fauci said, as if he were about to break the news to his struggling 17th-century settlement that their supply of cured meats would barely last through January. “Americans should start preparing now in anticipation of the hardships ahead.”

“We’ll all see new troubles and sacrifices come winter,” Fauci continued, like he was leading a town meeting to ration paraffin and thread among malnourished pilgrim families, many of which had already lost loved ones to the elements. “We have to hunker down and wait it out.”

“Nevertheless, it is key that we keep our spirits up during this time,” the doctor concluded, striking a similar tone to a musket-bearing patriarch whose only hope to escape starvation is slaughtering the prized family pig, an animal which his children have grown irreversibly attached to. “All we can do now is hope for the best.”

At press time, Dr. Debora Birx tightened the floral scarf around her neck as she prepared for the bitter cold.