COVID-19 cases may start to decline as early as March – but only if people wear masks, social distance and are vaccinated as soon as they are eligible
COVID-19 vaccine programs are being launched worldwide, offering a light at the end of the tunnel. In the USA, especially, things are finally starting to look hopeful again, after we were the epicenter of the global pandemic since last spring. The coronavirus has killed 1.7 million people worldwide, with more than 300,000 of them in the United States alone. Now that vaccines are here and being distributed, many are wondering how long it will be before we have any appearance of normality back in our lives.
The short answer is that we don’t really know. It will probably be a long time before things look as they were before the pandemic. But there are still reasons to hope, doctors say. With vaccination in progress, Bloomberg asked a doctor when COVID-19 cases could start to decline, and he said it is possible that this could happen as early as March.
“I’m wondering when we’ll start seeing a reduction in cases,” Bloombergsaid Tim Stenovec. “I don’t want to call this the third wave, because it looks like we’ve been at that peak for a long time, but when we start to see the daily decline in cases, will daily deaths start to decline and hospitalizations will start to decline?”
Her guest was Dr. Gabor Kelen, from Johns Hopkins University. Johns Hopkins did some of the most important public health work in the world during the pandemic, including creating a panel that extracts health data and tracks COVID-19 cases worldwide by country, city and more.
“Most of the modeling shows that we are on an upward path in early January – probably peaking in late January or early February with a decline in early or mid-February, early March,” explained Dr. Kelen . “So, if people do what they’re supposed to do and wear masks, keep their distance, if they’re eligible for vaccination, take it, then we’ll probably see some serious relief in March – the end of March. “
Moderna’s CEO, Stéphane Bancel, warned that the new vaccine was not a “silver bullet” and that measures of social detachment and masking would still be needed to keep case levels low. Of course, we have reason to be concerned about whether masking needs to continue, because we know that there are many people in this country having tantrums for having to use one.
That is why it is important to reiterate that Dr. Kelen did not say that we would see relief from COVID cases in March, no matter what – it will only happen if people make the right choices and do their part to help slow the spread of the virus. That means masks, social distance and vaccines. If we all work together, there may be an end in sight. Now let’s do that.
See the original article at ScaryMommy.com