Sep 21, 2021 10:03 PM
(This post was last modified: Sep 21, 2021 10:04 PM by C C.)
https://www.statnews.com/2021/09/20/wint...son-looms/
INTRO: A year ago, experts warned that the United States faced a grim winter if Americans didn’t mask up and social distance to slow transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus before “indoor weather” — aka winter — settled in for its long stay. We all know how well that warning was heeded. In January, cases topped 300,000 a day; Covid ended the lives of about 95,000 Americans before the month was out.
Now indoor weather again looms in many parts of this country, and daily case counts are rising well into the six figures. The highly transmissible Delta variant is driving spread, even among fully vaccinated people. Children are back in classrooms that can function as germ incubators. As you walk around in public you see noses poking out of masks, masks under chins, faces that are mask free.
So what should we expect as we head into our second Covid autumn and winter?
“The bottom line is, I think, uncertainty,” said Jeffrey Duchin, health officer for the Seattle and King County public health department, who has been mired in the Covid response since the earliest days of the U.S. outbreak. “We’re experiencing a new virus, a newly emerged pathogen, and we’re trying to fight it with new tools that we don’t have a lot of experience with,” he said. “And we’re dealing with unpredictable human behavior … which is a very important factor as well, and environmental factors that may influence the severity of Covid outbreaks and how well it transmits.”
“There’s a lot of moving parts,” said Duchin, who is also an infectious diseases professor at the University of Washington. Among them: the questions of when Covid vaccines will be approved for use in children and what percentage of parents will agree to vaccinate their kids.
While the crystal ball may be cloudy, who can resist taking a peek? Let’s talk about some things we might face in the months ahead... (MORE - details)
INTRO: A year ago, experts warned that the United States faced a grim winter if Americans didn’t mask up and social distance to slow transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus before “indoor weather” — aka winter — settled in for its long stay. We all know how well that warning was heeded. In January, cases topped 300,000 a day; Covid ended the lives of about 95,000 Americans before the month was out.
Now indoor weather again looms in many parts of this country, and daily case counts are rising well into the six figures. The highly transmissible Delta variant is driving spread, even among fully vaccinated people. Children are back in classrooms that can function as germ incubators. As you walk around in public you see noses poking out of masks, masks under chins, faces that are mask free.
So what should we expect as we head into our second Covid autumn and winter?
“The bottom line is, I think, uncertainty,” said Jeffrey Duchin, health officer for the Seattle and King County public health department, who has been mired in the Covid response since the earliest days of the U.S. outbreak. “We’re experiencing a new virus, a newly emerged pathogen, and we’re trying to fight it with new tools that we don’t have a lot of experience with,” he said. “And we’re dealing with unpredictable human behavior … which is a very important factor as well, and environmental factors that may influence the severity of Covid outbreaks and how well it transmits.”
“There’s a lot of moving parts,” said Duchin, who is also an infectious diseases professor at the University of Washington. Among them: the questions of when Covid vaccines will be approved for use in children and what percentage of parents will agree to vaccinate their kids.
While the crystal ball may be cloudy, who can resist taking a peek? Let’s talk about some things we might face in the months ahead... (MORE - details)
