Coronavirus cases may soon spike again with the surging delta variant and with winter in sight.
Dr. Megan Ranney, the associate dean of the School of Public Health at Brown University, told CNN that she expects to see COVID-19 cases spike in the next weeks and months, meaning it’s not time to let down your guard.
- “We are not out of the woods, and I fully expect case counts to go up again across the country over the weeks and months to come,” she said.
Ranney said the vaccines remain a crucial part of keeping people safe from COVID-19. The COVID-19 vaccine doesn’t mean you won’t get sick with the virus, especially with the highly transmissible delta variant. Still, the vaccines can prevent death from the coronavirus.
- “For the vast majority of us, if you get your vaccines, you are not going to die,” Ranney told CNN. “As this disease spreads, it spreads throughout the entire community. It’s more likely to catch those more vulnerable people.”
Indeed, experts are preparing themselves for a darker and busy winter when it comes to COVID-19. It doesn’t help that the flu will pop up again since many COVID-19 restrictions have been dropped, leaving people vulnerable to new viruses.
- “We were worried about the ‘twindemic’ last year and we face the same threat this year,” Dr. Daniel Solomon, a physician in the division of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, told USA Today. “COVID-19 is likely to continue, and we face the threat of dual respiratory viruses that could put a strain on our health care system.”
Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, said Wednesday that “we’re in for a whopper” of a winter with the flu and COVID-19 both circulating.
- “We haven’t seen a flu season last year — we’re in for a whopper because we haven’t put immunity into the population in at least one and maybe now two years. When the flu does come back, and it will come back, it’s going to come back very aggressively,” he told CNBC Wednesday.