Despite all the strategies and experts’ anticipation that the United States of America will successfully dodge the winter surge of Covid-19 cases, unfortunately, the cases are on the rise once again.
America reported 665,420 positive new Covid-19 cases this week which is approximately 30% more than the pace of the positive cases being recorded the past month.
The data from U.S Health and Human Services showcased that the cases are surging in 39 states whereas 32 states have witnessed more patients being admitted to the hospitals this week than the past month.
Danielle Ompad, an Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the New York University’s School of Global Public Health stated “quite frankly, I’m really concerned. I would say we are better off than we were last year, but cases are starting to tick up and that is something that we really need to keep an eye on.”
After combating the deadly virus for almost two years the medical experts of the United States had exclaimed that they were in a better position to curtail the pandemic now that almost 60% of the population has been vaccinated as well. But instead, a lot of people remain unvaccinated or dodge the vaccine along with mitigating the measures which actually slowed the pace of success against the Covid-19 virus curtailment.
“We could really get a good handle on this, but that’s not what’s happening,” Ompad said. “People are fighting against the straightforward advice.”
Dr. Chris Beyrer from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health shared his disappointment saying, “We always knew that there’s a small number of people who are vigorously opposed to vaccines, only about 1-2% of Americans refuse all vaccines outright. We didn’t expect the COVID response would be so impacted by the divisive politics and deliberate spreading of misinformation.
“That’s why we are having another holiday season of COVID.”
Dr. Beyrer also pointed towards the possibility of Covid-19 becoming an endemic if measures are taken to predict the future pattern of the virus.
“We are already seeing the emergence of something like a seasonal pattern with COVID.”Moreover, he added, “It is predictable as the weather gets cooler and people go inside, rates would increase and we’re seeing that.”