The United States sees a huge decline in new COVID-19 cases. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, new cases of the disease have decreased for the fifth consecutive week and dropped by more than 24 percent. Yahoo News Medical Contributor, dr. Kavita Patel, explains a few reasons why this happens, and whether we can see a fourth boom driven by new variants.
Video transcription
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KAVITA PATEL: We are seeing the virus retreat, or at least seeing a lot of solid evidence across the country that the cases are declining at a very dramatic rate. Almost half of each week, if not more. And there are different factors that contribute.
Number one, and probably the most likely, are just the ups and downs we’ve seen with previous rises. As the cases skyrocket and hospitals become overwhelmed, cities, provinces and states usually take much stricter measures. Eliminating indoor dining, eliminating group settings where people can get together. And it helps significantly to make matters less. This is probably a major factor in the recent decline.
The second is, and there is speculation about what we call the seasonality of the virus. What this means – and perhaps an easier way to think about it – is to think about the flu. Almost every winter we see an increase in cases of flu virus, but we do not see as much flu – although it does exist – in the summer. There is therefore a speculation that coronavirus is seasonal. This is not the way we see flu, but similar, so it could be a driver.
A third, but less likely, is to some extent not just vaccines, but an idea that many people are now infected with. At the moment, we think we are underestimating the number of Americans who are infected. We think it is about 10% according to our testing. But there are many who think that it is in fact double or triple. And really, at the end of the day, the more people who are already infected, the fewer physical bodies should try to infect the virus. But it’s hard to know without some data to back it up. But all in all, we are seeing a decline.
We need to continue to see that these numbers reach at least where we started in March. If you remember, we were worried about the coronavirus even when we were about 1,000 cases a day. Since then, it has only gotten worse, but we should not become complacent, because we are still in a fairly vulnerable period where cases are declining, but they still exist. A large part of the country is still in sort of what I would call a red category, with enough cases to be wary of reopening. And also these variants we know are more communicable and are probably contagious to others.
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The next speculation is whether we will have a fourth boom. I do think that in some parts of the country we will see an increase in business in the next few months. It probably won’t be as dramatic as this holiday season increases. But remember, in March and again in July we saw a certain amount of location to the thrusts. We hit the parts of the East and West Coast the most in March. And then in July we see other parts of the country that were not affected in March.
We can see a similar pattern, and it has a lot to do with the level of vaccination in the communities, as well as the extent of these variants. They are everywhere. But the extent to which they drive the current infections will likely depend on the community you are in. A fourth surge again feels like it is very likely, but to a much lower extent than the most recent. And hopefully a much lower grade than the previous two in March and July.
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