The United States is seeing a big drop in the number of new COVID-19 cases. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, new cases of the disease have declined for the fifth consecutive week, by more than 24 percent. Dr. Yahoo News medical officer Kavita Patel explains some of the reasons why this is happening and whether we may be seeing a fourth wave driven by new variants.
Video transcription
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KAVITA PATEL: We are seeing the virus pull back, or at least see very solid evidence across the country that the number of cases is declining at a very dramatic rate. Almost half of every week, if not more. And there are several factors that contribute.
Number one, and probably the most likely, is just sort of the ups and downs we’ve seen on previous peaks. With cases soaring and hospitals overwhelmed, cities, counties and states are taking much stricter measures. Stop eating indoors and eliminate all group settings where people can gather. And that really materially helps to reduce cases. That’s probably a big factor in this recent decline.
The second is, and it’s some speculation around, what we call the seasonality of the virus. What that means – and perhaps an easier way to think about it – is to think about the flu. Almost every winter we see an increase in the number of flu virus cases, but we don’t see that much flu – even if it exists – in the summer. So it is speculated that the coronavirus is seasonal. It’s not the way we see flu, but similar, so that could be a motivation.
A third, but less likely, is to some extent not just vaccines, but also the idea that many people are now infected. At this point, we think we are underestimating the number of Americans infected. We think it is about 10% according to our tests. But there are many who think that in reality it is double or triple. And actually, at the end of the day, the more people are already infected, the fewer physical bodies the virus has to try to infect. But it’s hard to know without data to back it up. But all in all, we see a decrease.
We should continue to see these numbers at least getting to what we started in March. If you remember, even when we had about 1,000 cases a day, we were concerned about the coronavirus. It has only gotten worse since then, but we shouldn’t get complacent as we are still in a pretty fragile period where cases are decreasing but they still exist. Much of the nation is still in what I would call a red category, with enough cases to be wary of reopening. And, also, these variants that we know are more communicable and very likely to be contagious to others.
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The next speculation is whether or not we will have a fourth wave. I think we will see an increase in cases in some parts of the country in the coming months. It probably won’t be as dramatic as this holiday season peak. But remember, we saw some degree of localization of the peaks in March and again in July. March saw parts of the east and west coasts hit the most. And then, in July, we saw other parts of the country that were unaffected in March.
We could see a similar pattern and that will have a lot to do with the degree of vaccination in those communities, as well as the extent of the size of these variants. They are everywhere. But the extent to which they cause the current infections will likely depend on the community you are in. So again, a fourth wave seems very likely, but to a much lesser extent than this most recent one. And hopefully a much lower rate than the two previous ones in March and July.
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