We’re about two weeks away from knowing how well the coronavirus vaccines protected us in our quest for a return to normality.
Memorial Day might have seemed like a return to normal, according to USA Today. But we won’t know the true impact of the vaccines on that return to normal for another two weeks. Health experts often wait two weeks to see the impact of the coronavirus’ spread because the virus takes somewhere between two and 14 days to make someone sick.
CNN medical analyst Dr. Leana Wen told CNN we will see the impact of Memorial Day in two weeks — and to see how well the vaccines protected us.
- “In some ways, this was the first big stress test,” she told CNN. “We have restrictions lifted en masse, people going about their normal lives. We know that in the past after major holidays and an increase in travel that we then had a substantial uptick in the rate of infections.”
Wen told CNN she’s really worried about unvaccinated people, who wouldn’t be protected from the coronavirus’ spread.
- “You have parts of the country with very low vaccination rates,” she said. “I really worry about the unvaccinated people in those areas spreading coronavirus to one another.”
Coronavirus cases have neared a pandemic low ahead of the Memorial Day weekend, which was expected to bring heavy amounts of travel to airports across the country, according to CNBC.
- There were 11,976 new COVID-19 cases reported on Saturday, which were the lowest since March 23, 2020 — before there was such easy access to testing, CNBC reports.
- The seven-day average for COVID-19 cases reached 21,007 last week, which was the lowest since the week of March 21, 2020, according to CNBC.