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The United States sees a sharp drop in new cases of COVID-19. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, new cases of the disease declined for the fifth week in a row, falling more than 24%. Yahoo News medical contributor Dr Kavita Patel explains some of the reasons this is happening and whether we might see a fourth outbreak due to new variants.
Video transcript
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KAVITA PATEL: We are seeing the virus receding, or at least seeing very strong evidence across the country that cases are dropping at a very dramatic rate. Almost half every week, if not more. And several factors contribute to it.
Number one, and probably the most likely, are just the ups and downs we’ve seen with previous surges. Typically, as cases skyrocket and hospitals are overwhelmed, cities, counties and states are putting much tougher measures in place. Eliminate indoor meals, eliminate all group settings where people can congregate. And it really helps reduce cases. This is probably a major factor in this recent decline.
The second is, and this is speculation around, what we call the seasonality of the virus. What that means – and maybe an easier way to think about it is to think about the flu. Almost every winter we see an increase in influenza virus cases, but we don’t see as much of the flu – even if it exists – in the summer. So there is speculation that the coronavirus has some seasonality. It’s not the way we see the flu but similar, so it could be a driver.
A third, but less likely, is, to some extent, not only vaccines, but some idea that many people have now been infected. Right now, we believe we are underestimating the number of Americans infected. We think it’s around 10% by our tests. But there are many who think it’s double or triple in reality. And really, at the end of the day, the more people who have already been infected, the less the virus has to try to infect physical bodies. But it’s hard to know without some data to back it up. But overall, we are seeing a decrease.
We should continue to see these numbers get to at least where we started in March. If you remember correctly, even when we were at around 1,000 cases per day, we were concerned about the coronavirus. It has only gotten worse since then but we shouldn’t be complacent as we are still in a fairly vulnerable time where cases are on the decline but they still exist. Much of the nation is still in something of what I would call a red category, with enough cases to watch out for reopenings. And, also, these variants that we know of are more transmissible and very likely to be contagious to others.
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The next speculation is whether or not we’ll have a fourth push. I think we’re going to see, in parts of the country, an increase in cases over the next few months. It probably won’t be as dramatic as this vacation wave. But remember, in March and again in July, we saw a certain degree of locality to surges. We saw parts of the east and west coast most affected in March. And then in July, we saw other parts of the country that had not been affected in March.
We could see a similar trend and it will have a lot to do with the level of vaccination in these communities, as well as the level of spread of these variants. They are everywhere. But the extent to which they are the root of current infections will likely depend on the community you find yourself in. So again, a fourth flare seems very likely, but to a much lesser degree than the most recent. And I hope for a much lower degree than the previous two in March and July.
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