- While health experts expect cases to rise, they don’t think there will be a wave as devastating as the previous two summers or the recent omicron surge.
- But the average pace of deaths fell to 327 per day, about half of where it was at the end of March.
- The first step is to prevent severe illness so that a surge in cases doesn’t lead to more hospitalizations and deaths, Justman said.
COVID-19 instances, hospitalizations, and deaths spiked during the previous two pandemic summers, but this season could be different as reported by USA Today.
Covid isn’t done with us
While health experts expect cases to rise, they don’t think there will be a wave as devastating as the previous two summers or the recent omicron surge.
Unlike the previous summers, most of the U.S. population now has some immunity against the coronavirus from vaccines, boosters and previous infections.
People also have access to antivirals that can prevent hospitalizations in the unvaccinated.
Research however shows that immunity wanes and new variants could evade what protection remains.
“I know we all want to be done with COVID, but I don’t think it’s done with us,” said Dr. Jessica Justman, associate professor of medicine in epidemiology and senior technical director of ICAP at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.
What to expect this summer?
Coronavirus trends in the spring give experts clues about what to expect this summer.
Cases plummeted after the omicron surge in the winter, then plateaued and began to rise again in the spring.
But the average pace of deaths fell to 327 per day, about half of where it was at the end of March.
The worst-case scenario is the emergence of a potent new variant that isn’t dulled by current vaccines and previous infections, causing a large wave of cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
Julie Swann, a professor and public health researcher at North Carolina State University, expects the situation this summer to land in the middle: a small wave throughout the country with a slight uptick in hospitalizations and deaths.
What to expect long term?
Barring a new devastating variant, most health experts agree the country may finally be out of the acute pandemic phase.
But it’s still far from an endemic phase, when COVID-19 is expected to become like the seasonal flu, bringing a week or two of misery but a low risk of severe disease or death.
But SARS-CoV-2 has no discernible seasonable pattern so far… “We would all agree that we’re not in a place where we can predict how many cases there will be and what the locations of those case numbers will be,” Justman said.
Sometimes a person is pulled out of school or works from home and must notify close contacts.
“Is the virus still disrupting our lives?”
The best way to do this is for Americans to stay up to date with their vaccines and practise mitigation measures to keep vulnerable loved ones safe.
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Source: USA Today
