Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester said she’s “comfortable” with monetary policy at the moment. “Asset purchases will be tapered once the Fed is ready to make changes, not reduced suddenly.” “It’s very premature to think we’re getting to the point to change our policy stance,” she added. “We’re quite a while away from a change in the policy stance.”

Separately, Kansas City Fed President Esther George said, “overall, the outlook is for monetary policy to remain accommodative for some time… It is too soon to speculate about the timing of any change in this stance.”

Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren said in a speech that the public health crisis will likely “dissipate over the course of this year”. “The pandemic is likely to continue to be a problem for public health and the economy until widespread vaccinations take hold,” he added. “Nonetheless, with substantial fiscal and monetary support, I expect a robust recovery starting in the second half of this year.”

In response to a question, Rosengren said, “I expect it to be a little while before we’re even talking about tapering on our purchases of government and mortgage-backed securities.”

Full speech here.

St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said it’s an “encouraging sign that the Treasury 10-2 spread is returning to more normal levels for an expansion.” Markets are ” hoping to see the end of the pandemic in 2021,” he added. “. They’re hoping to see good growth going forward, and because of that you’re seeing the yields normalize.”

But he also emphasized, “we want to get through the pandemic and sort of see where the dust settles, then we will be able to think about where to go with balance-sheet policy.” Fed would like to “replicate” the 2013 tapering process “when the time comes”. However, “we are not close to that yet.”

Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin said in a CNBC interview, “you’re looking at a second half that is going to be very strong “. But the question is “how do we get through where we are today to that second half,” he added. “While it might be bumpy, I think there are backstops here, and in particular, fiscal would be a backstop, I think elevated savings are a backstop.”

Barkin “couldn’t tell” the day when Fed starts to scale back monetary stimulus, as it gave “outcome guidance not data guidance”. But ” this notion of ‘substantial further progress’ is the right way to think about it,” he said. “So there are scenarios certainly where we see strong recovery in unemployment and inflation but there are lots of scenarios where we don’t.”

Atlanta Federal Reserve President Raphael Bostic said, “all of the economic fallout has been a function of how we’ve responded to the public health crisis… Making a forecast about this year is really at its heart a forecast of how well the vaccine is going to penetrate into the population so we’re at a place where we don’t have to be so cautious about how we do our economic activity.”

Though, he added, “there is some possibility that the economy could come back a bit stronger than some are expecting… If that happens, I’m prepared to support pulling back and recalibrating a bit of our accommodation and then considering moving the policy rate.”

“But I don’t see that happening in 2021. A whole lot would have to happen to get us there,” he said. “Then we’ll see into 2022. Maybe the second half of 2022 or even 2023 where that might be more in play.”

Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan emphasized “we should be as aggressive as we can be while we are in the teeth of this pandemic, until we are convinced that we have weathered this pandemic.”

Though, “later this year, my own view is, we should at least be having an earnest discussion about when it’s appropriate to taper” the asset purchase program.

He expects the US economy to grow around 5% this year, with unemployment rate falling back to 4.50-4.75% from current level of 6.7%. The economy will then have made “substantial progress” towards Fed’s dual mandate.

By the time, “I think it’s a healthier for the U.S. economy and for markets to wean off these extraordinary actions and this extraordinary stimulus,” he said.