“I think we will be deceived,” said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia, on Thursday. “I think what will happen is that you will see that, as we enter the summer months, the numbers will drop, people will think very well, we are fine.”
He added: “And then, if we don’t get to what I think will be at least 80% of the population’s immunity against natural infections or immunization, when winter comes, you will see a sudden increase again.”
Still, many states have begun to relax measures, including masking mandates. And because of fewer masks and more people moving with more communicable variants, IHME increased its forecast of Covid-19 deaths on July 1 by an additional 22,000 people.
Overall, the IHME predicts almost 600,000 deaths from Covid-19 by July 1, up from the current number of about 530,000 reported deaths.
“I think March and April are such important and critical times,” she said. “On the one hand, you have this hyper-transmissible virus that can result in another outbreak after spring break.
“On the other hand, we are increasing vaccinations very quickly, and what we really want to do is just give these vaccines a chance to overcome and not allow this virus to emerge again.”
‘We have to be humble with this virus’
For those who are vaccinated, the CDC released new guidelines on Monday, maintaining travel recommendations for those who have been vaccinated.
Some questioned whether the guidelines are too strict.
“We have to be humble with this virus,” Walensky said in an interview with NBC Nightly News. “Every time we felt that everything was under control, we had a huge increase.”
Once more people are vaccinated and the number of cases decreases, the CDC can revise its guidelines, said Walensky.
A year after much of the country was paralyzed by the virus, more than 98 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines were administered in the United States, according to CDC data published on Thursday.
About 1 in 10 people in the United States – about 33.9 million people – are fully vaccinated and about 1 in 5 people – more than 64 million – received a dose.
“If July 4th arrives and your family has been vaccinated and your neighbors on the street have been vaccinated, yes, you can absolutely get together for a barbecue,” Dr. Jonathan Reiner told Don Lemon on Thursday.
“Getting shot in the arm is not just a ticket for vaccination, it is a ticket to take people back to offices, to open movie theaters, to fill stadiums, to put people back on airplanes,” he said .
Turning attention to ‘long Covid’
“I worry that we are really just seeing the tip of the iceberg when we think of Covid Long, that there will be a lot of disabilities, a lot of suffering that will be with us for a long time,” said Jha. “I hope this is not true. But that is what I care about and I would like to understand it better.”
A recent study found that 30% of people with Covid-19 continue to experience symptoms up to nine months after the initial infection, and the National Institutes of Health has launched a $ 1 billion research effort to study the long-term health effects .
CNN’s Christopher Rios, Brandon Miller, Lauren Mascarenhas, Ryan Prior and Deidre McPhillips contributed to this report.