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The number of new cases is still “considerably higher” than the peak last summer, said Dr Rochelle Walensky, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday.
But figuring out what the rest of the year will bring depends on who you ask. Some pundits embrace optimism and others brace for a storm. Many say it is too early to know. All are concerned about the new variants. And they hope you will do your part to prevent the increase in the number of variations.
“Despite the trends that are going in the right direction, we remain in a very serious situation,” Walensky said during a White House briefing on the coronavirus on Monday. “Covid-19 continues to infect too many people.”
Walensky warned that the spread of variants is “a threat that could reverse recent positive trends we are seeing.”
Viruses change as they spread, and with so many cases around the world, the coronavirus has had many opportunities. Some changes are harmless. Others make it more contagious.
This is what happened with the variant first detected in the UK. Its ability to transmit is such a concern that some experts like Dr. Peter Hotez, the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, describe the coming boom as a “hurricane”.
This, he says, is the eye of the storm.
Hotez told CNN on Tuesday that the new variants first found in the UK, South Africa and Brazil may reverse what currently appear to be positive trends.
“Everything is going in the right direction. The numbers are going down. We’re starting to go up in terms of vaccinations. Everything looks really promising. Unfortunately, we have these spike variants that seem to be going up and that really worries me,” Hotez said.
Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm has called the variant threat a “category five hurricane” and warns the country has not seen the end of new cases.
Even with ongoing vaccinations, more cases could lead to more hospitalizations and deaths.
And while that has yet to happen, experts fear the virus could mutate so that tests, vaccines and antibody treatments sensitive to the original coronavirus will stop working. More research is needed, but so far trials of vaccines and antibody treatments indicate that they still work against the variants, although some may not work as well. Vaccine makers are already looking for ways to adapt them, if necessary.
Variants are one of the reasons why Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, wants you to get your shot as soon as it is your turn.
“You need to get vaccinated as soon as it becomes available as quickly and as quickly as possible,” Fauci said during a press briefing with the White House Covid-19 response team. “Viruses can’t mutate if they don’t replicate. And if you stop their replication by vaccinating widely and not giving the virus an open playing field to continue responding to the pressures you put on it, you don’t. will not get mutations. “
Still other experts are more optimistic that the country will get ahead of the variants. Former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr Scott Gottlieb told CBS on Sunday that cases are expected to stabilize, even as the variants cause “localized hot spots.”
Dr Ashish Jha, the dean of the School of Public Health at Brown University, said the country is in a “much better situation” today than it was three weeks ago. “Cases are dropping and the optimism and kind of outlook for the future is very bright, once we go into May and June,” Jha said. “The next few months could end up being quite difficult.”
Jha said the “issue” that could determine the future of how the country experiences the pandemic will be how it deals with the variant. It has the potential to cause the problems Osterholm warned about, Jha said; however, if people have a short term strategy to deal with it and stay vigilant, “things are going to get a lot, a lot better.”
Dr Claudia Hoyen, an infectious disease specialist at Cleveland Medical Center Teaching Hospitals, believes that with the variants and the slow rollout of the vaccine, it is too early to know what the future of the pandemic will look like.
Right now, Hoyen said she’s pretty sure things will look a lot like what they’ve been for a while.
You will still be wearing masks for the foreseeable future, and you shouldn’t have dinner indoors on Valentine’s Day.
“We’re going to learn more every day,” Hoyen said. “I know it’s not something people want to hear, because it’s not something I want to say. I would love to be able to say by March that it will look like this, then in June that going it looks like this, but unfortunately there are still so many moving pieces in this puzzle. Every time we think we get to a place where we know what to expect, something else happens. “
Hoyen said she understood people’s frustration.
“But they also have to understand that it really doesn’t look like anything we’ve ever seen before and that it’s changing so quickly that, you know, you really have to do your best to stay one step ahead of it,” Hoyen mentioned.
To stay ahead of the game, you know the drill. Maintain a physical distance. Wear a good mask. Wash your hands. Avoid the crowds.
“We have to be patient,” Hoyen said. “It’s tough, really tough. We’re humans, we love each other. But we still have to keep our guard up. You don’t want to be that person who created another. Variant and you want to stay safe.”
“At the end of the day what we want is for us to all go through this together, so that maybe next Christmas we hope things get better and we can celebrate with everyone who is here. today.
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