The 6 Factors That Will Determine the Severity of the COVID-19 Surge in the U.S. This Fall

Here we go again. The United States is now experiencing a fourth wave of COVID-19, with very rapidly rising infections. The surge in new daily cases is driven by the Delta variant, which makes up 83% of sequenced samples in the U.S. and which is estimated to be twice as transmissible as the original strain. One of the reasons that Delta spreads more easily is that a person infected with this variant has a viral load 1,000 times higher than someone infected with the original version of SARS-CoV-2. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Hospitalizations and deaths are also rising, though more slowly than cases, reflecting the fact that 49% of all Americans are fully vaccinated. Even with Delta, COVID-19 vaccines are extremely effective at preventing severe illness and death. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical advisor on COVID-19, estimates that over 99% of people dying in the U.S. from the illness are unvaccinated. But the levels of vaccination are not high enough in some areas to prevent new surges among those who are not inoculated. And with growing infections among the unvaccinated, some vaccinated people are not surprisingly getting breakthrough infections because no vaccines are 100% effective. So, what happens next? How is the pandemic likely to play out into the fall and winter? Here are six factors that are likely to drive the shape of the pandemic in the coming months. First, local vaccination rates will continue to be the most important f...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 Source Type: news