The coronavirus infections seems to increase more and more, and with the holiday season coming, people are getting worried. Experts say that this winter might be the start of a surge. From mid-September, cases started to decline, but the country is now at more than 83,000 cases a day. That’s a 14% increase in comparison to last week.
Dr. George Rutherford, from the University of California, stated: “I hate to say it, but I suspect we’re at the start of a new winter surge. There are still large swaths of the country under-immunized and even among states that are relatively well-vaccinated, like Colorado, New Mexico, Minnesota and Vermont, we’re seeing sustained transmission.”
The outbreaks from the Midwest and Northeast are the ones responsible for the high numbers. Hospitals there are dealing with a lot of very sick patients. And let’s also remember that the hospitals still have patients who don’t have COVID-19, but they still need care.
However, with all this in mind, a new possible surge will not bring the US to the case state of crisis at last year. Nicholas Reich at UMass Amherst stated: “The vast majority of the population has some form of immunity. That feels really different about this moment — there are fewer people to infect.”
Of course, there will be an increase in cases, but given the fact that 60% of the population is fully vaccinated, experts don’t think it will get that bad. But Americans don’t wear their masks anymore, and they travel just like they did before the pandemic started. And since Europe is also dealing with a surge in cases, the problem here isn’t of „if”, but „when”.
