This week in Make It: Ending the pandemic, Wordle cheaters and more

What you need to know to help you make it.

VIEW IN BROWSER | SUBSCRIBE     WED, MAR 16, 2022 Nick Vega is a money reporter at CNBC Make It. He previously covered the tech industry at the New York Post and Business Insider. Nick has a bachelor's degree from Binghamton University and grew up in New York, N.Y. You can follow him on Twitter at @atNickVega. It seems like everyone is trying to put Covid in the rearview mirror these days. New York City's mayor lifted vaccination mandates for businesses and events last month, while the CDC recently issued guidance suggesting more than 90% of Amercians now live in an area where they can stop wearing face masks.    But the lifting of restrictions doesn't mean we're out of the woods yet – especially with the U.S. still experiencing a seven-day moving average of more than 1,000 Covid deaths per day. That's why it was interesting to read my colleague Mike Winters' coverage of a new report from an independent group of doctors and public health policy experts which outlines a road map to get Americans back to their "pre-pandemic routines and lives."    The experts say that Covid is "here to stay" and warn that "omicron won't be the last variant." But they also want to see deaths decline to fewer than 165 per day, a level on par with the common flu.   So what will it take to get back to pre-pandemic life? One of the keys to achieving the "next normal," as the experts have dubbed it, will be developing more therapeutic drugs that can prevent serious illness and hospitalization in people who have been infected.   They also called for a centralized "information and communication center" that would oversee the sharing of data about infectious diseases. The new entity would also communicate when and where you should wear masks, if Covid-19 cases surge.   Whether we get to a "next normal" anytime soon remains to be seen. The experts say the two therapeutic drugs, developed by Pfizer and Merck, aren't enough and have called for a wider array of treatment options. And President Biden's new "Test to Treat" program, which intends to offer free antiviral pills to people who test positive for Covid at major pharmacies, federally qualified health centers and long-term care facilities, will initially only be available at a few hundred pharmacies.      Read more about the end of the pandemic in Mike's full report.    Here are some other highlights from this week in Make It.  It pays to house Ukrainian refugees in the U.K.: Brits are being given incentives to house refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine, Make It's Vicky McKeever reports. The U.K. government's "Homes for Ukraine" project offers Britons a payment of £350 ($457) a month if they house refugees for at least six months.  Wordle cheating is on the rise: If your friends are beating you at Wordle, they might have had some help. The word game has increased in popularity since The New York Times acquired it in January, but so to have instances of cheating, CNBC Make It's Mikaela Cohen reports. Woz on Jobs' success: Steve Wozniak says that his Apple co-founder Steve Jobs wasn't a particularly gifted engineer, but became an icon by finding "other areas" to master. "He learned a lot of marketing principles because he wasn't really capable, engineering-wise," Wozniak told CNBC Make It's Tom Huddleston Jr. "He had to find other areas to make himself important."   Have a friend who might appreciate this type of content? Please forward it along! Trending articles from CNBC Make It This 47-year-old left a $800,000 salary to coach basketball – now his small school is headed to NCAA March Madness Elon Musk shared advice for how to invest during periods of inflation—and it echoes Warren Buffett Where you live could be costing you at the pump—here are the most and least expensive states to get gas Ex-Disney CEO Bob Iger's next step: Investing in a metaverse start-up run by a 29-year-old This 31-year-old quit her $150,000-a-year tech job to start an equal pay app: Here's how she got started   Unsubscribe Manage Newsletters Digital Products   Feedback Terms of Service Privacy Policy   © 2021 CNBC LLC. All rights reserved. A property of NBC Universal. 900 Sylvan Avenue, Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632 Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes. Global Business and Financial News, Stock Quotes and Market Data and Analysis. Data also provided by THOMSON REUTERS