Coronavirus cases spread across the country and vaccinations total 17. Americans Millions of Americans a day and growing, health experts are increasingly raising new voices in their assessment of the epidemic: optimism.
A vaccine specialist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Dr. “I may be wrong, but I don’t think we’re going to see a big fourth increase,” said Paul Fitte. “I think we’ve seen its worst.”
Many pathologists and other scientists, while still cautious, say they are increasingly optimistic that the rest of 2021 will not revive last year’s two-year dream.
Experts say the arrival of spring will help reduce the ongoing disruption in coronavirus cases, as warmer weather can allow people to spend more time outdoors and create a less hospitable environment for the virus.
But paradoxically, the biggest factor is something the nation spent the last year trying to stop it.
While 12% of Americans have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, many – about 35% of the country’s population – are already infected with the coronavirus. Studies have shown that people who survive COVID-19 have immunity for many months, although it may last longer.
UC San Francisco Epidemiologist Dr. George Ruthford said one reason why cases in California are declining so rapidly is “naturally acquired immunity, mostly in Southern California.” He estimated that 50% of Los Angeles County residents have been infected with the virus at some point.
“We’re really starting to sound like something and talking about what looks like mob immunity – although that true mob immunity is a way into the future,” R. Ford said recently.
Herds reach immunity when many people have the immunity that the virus cannot find new hosts and stops the spread, resulting in community-wide protection. Scientists believe that in the case of coronavirus, the threshold can be as high as 90%. The United States has not reached this threshold but every step towards it slows down the transmission, experts say.
Its effects may be greatest in places that produce the worst COVID-19, including in Los Angeles. U.S.C. According to researchers, a terrible autumn and winter storm, which has killed more than 12,000 people, has already infected about 33% to 55% of the county with coronavirus.
This past infection has significantly cut off coronavirus transmission so they have changed the current route of outbreak in LA County, where new daily cases have been declining for five weeks, said Dr. S. K. Krishnan, director of demand modeling at Seaweed-19 Hospital. Said Roger Lewis. For the LA County Department of Health Services.
“If you had the same behavior as we have now and the spread of the virus, but we were at the beginning of the epidemic and there is no immunity yet … we will be in the midst of an ongoing surge,” he said. “The fact that cases are going down right now, in opposition to it, means that almost a third of everyone in Los Angeles County has COVID immunity.”
But experts warn that the war has not yet been won.
By making existing vaccines more resistant or finding a way to spread them more easily, new coronavirus variants can weaken these predictions. Behavior changes can also present this good news, as experts say only if people stick to the precautions they have taken so far.
“I don’t want to give a misunderstanding of certainty here,” said LA County Chief Science Officer Dr. Paul Simon said that 0% of Angelinos would be susceptible if more than a third of people were already infected. Corona virus. “They are vulnerable as long as they do not have the vaccine. I think we need to be vigilant. ”
Across the country, coronavirus cases have fallen to the level seen since the end of October, according to federal officials. In California, at the peak of the state’s winter severity, approximately 45,000 people are tested positive for coronavirus every day.
In LA County, officials currently estimate the R value – a measure of how many people are infected with the virus – around 0.8. Anything below 1 means the eruption is shrinking, and anything above 1 means it is increasing.
If many people in the county were not already immune, the R value would be a third higher or just above 1, Lewis said. Even a small increase in the risk of spreading the virus can have serious consequences.
“The fact is that the virus only jumps as many as one-third of people like it initially slowed down,” Lewis said.
Since the epidemic began, about 30 million Americans have tested positive for coronavirus, but the true number of people who have been infected with the virus is three or four times higher due to the low level of testing and the potential for many never to develop symptoms. , Experts say.
A large number of infections have come at a high cost. The country’s death toll is approaching 100,000,000, more than any other country in the world, and there are still more people surviving, but the length of their illness is having long-term effects, some of which are serious. According to experts, Kovid-1 All was allowed to run rampant to regain the immune system of the herd as some people were promoting the onset of the epidemic, experts say.
According to Simon of LA County, scientists say that the threshold for herd immunity is unclear, according to some scientists who believe that herd immunity can be achieved when 0% of people have immunity. He said even the uneven geographical distribution of the infection could make some pockets of the county more vulnerable than others.
“We don’t yet know what level of vaccination and protection will be needed to get pastoral immunity in the county,” Simon said in a briefing Friday. “As we see a sharp drop in the number of new cases – I think that’s the best sign that we’re reaching out to mob immunity, especially if we see it in the county.”
The biggest obstacle to ending the epidemic is the spread of coronavirus variants,
Especially if they are more transmissible or less sensitive to the vaccine. For example, the U.K. The type B1.1..7 that emerged in the Kingdom is about 0% more contagious than its predecessor and can spread epidemics in places where most people are infected.
Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College College of Medicine, said he thinks the flight will be normal and safe for friends and family to visit by Gust. But because of the differences, he warned people to “beware of the idea of March.”
In a recent interview with American Medical Assange, he said, “I think the biggest threat we are facing now is in the Covid-1p epidemic.” “As bad as 2020 was, we’re now looking at version 2.0 of this epidemic from variants.”
But others are more optimistic. It Fit said they would be concerned if they already had Covid-19 or who had been vaccinated had been hospitalized with an infection caused by the new variant.
“It doesn’t cross the line,” he said. “You want to keep people away from the spittle and to date it seems like there is no one who has survived disease-or vaccine-induced immunity.”
At an UCSF Department of Medicine CVD seminar last week, infectious disease specialist Dr. Monica Gandhi told him in simple words: “Let’s try not to worry about.”
It Fit said he is optimistic about the nation’s path during the summer and more people are being vaccinated. “I get a little worried when you get hit in September, and then it gets colder, and there’s a kind of change that can happen,” Fitt said, and people stop wearing masks and keep physical distance, Off Fit said.
U.S. Department of Disease Control and Prevention The director of the centers, Dr. Rochelle Valensky warned against looking at the downward case trend as a reason to skip masking and other safety precautions.
In an interview with the journal The F. American Medical Association, Vale Lansky said she hopes for the best, but also warned of a bad situation – that people will stop wearing masks and close physical distance too soon and many will declare prematurely that ‘epidemic is enough’ Was and will not be vaccinated.
“How this goes will depend on 330 million individuals,” Velensky said. “Because while I’m really optimistic about what could happen in March and April, I know this could get worse – so fast. And we saw it in November. We saw in December. We saw what could happen. “
UCLA’s pediatric infectious disease specialist Dr. Annabelle de St. Maurice said she sympathizes with the officers for trying to run a good line between maintaining morale and not making people feel so optimistic that they don’t let their guard down.
In LA in particular, the numbers have improved sharply, he said, but remain as high as they were during the deadly summer boom.
“It’s a reason to celebrate, and you want people to celebrate it, but you want them to wear masks and do it from a physical distance.”
