“I think we’re going to be fooled,” Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Philadelphia Children’s Hospital’s Vaccine Education Center, said Thursday. “I think what will happen is that you will see that as we enter the summer months, the numbers will drop, people will think wonderfully, we are good.”
He added: “And then, if we do not reach what I think will be at least 80% immunity of the population of natural infection or immunization, when winter comes, you will see an increase again.”
However, many states have begun to relax measures, including masked warrants. And because of the smaller number of masks and the larger number of people traveling with more transmissible variants, IHME increased its Covid-19 death toll until July 1 by another 22,000.
Overall, the IHME predicts nearly 600,000 deaths through Covid-19 by July 1, compared to the current number of approximately 530,000 deaths.
“I think March and April are just such important and critical times,” she said. “On the one hand, you have this hyper-transmissible virus that could lead to another wave after the spring breaks.
On the other hand, we are expanding vaccinations so quickly and what we really want to do is give those vaccines a chance to fight them and not let this virus grow again.
“We must be humble with this virus”
For those who are vaccinated, the CDC released new guidelines on Monday, maintaining travel recommendations for those who have been inoculated.
Some have questioned whether the guidelines are too strict.
“We have to be humble with this virus,” Walensky said in an interview with NBC Nightly News. “Every time we felt we had it under control, we had a huge increase.”
Once more people are vaccinated and the number of cases decreases, the CDC could revise its guidelines, Walensky said.
One year after much of the country was shut down by the virus, more than 98 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines were given in the United States, according to CDC data released Thursday.
About 1 in 10 people in the United States – about 33.9 million people – are completely vaccinated and almost 1 in 5 people – more than 64 million – have received a single dose.
“If July 4th comes and your family has been vaccinated and your neighbors on the street have been vaccinated, yes, you can absolutely get together for a barbecue,” Dr. Jonathan Reiner told CNN’s Don Lemon on Thursday.
“Taking shots in the arm is not just a ticket to vaccination, it’s a ticket to get people back into offices, to open movie theaters, to fill stadiums, to get people back on planes,” he said.
Focus on “Long Covid”
“I worry that we really see the tip of the iceberg when we think of the long Covid, that there will be a lot of disabilities, a lot of suffering that will be with us for a long time,” Jha said. “I hope that’s not true. But that’s what I’m worried about and I’d like to understand that better.”
A recent study found that 30% of those with Covid-19 continue to have symptoms for up to nine months after the initial infection, and the National Institutes of Health has launched a $ 1 billion research effort to study the long-term effects on Covid-19. health.
Christopher Rios, Brandon Miller, Lauren Mascarenhas, Ryan Prior and Deidre McPhillips contributed to this report.