In a recent CNN news report, an update was given on the basic state of the pandemic.
And a vital question was asked:
“What will the spring and summer look like, in terms of Covid, as we head into 2022?”
This is a great question, and the article did a pretty good job of answering it.
Here are some key takeaways that you’ll probably find interesting and informative.
Things Seem To Be Looking Up
The United States has now crossed into year three of the Covid pandemic.
But the good news is that the vaccines are still doing a good job of keeping people out of the hospital and alive.
Access to tests and treatments is also becoming more streamlined.
All in all, when you look at the numbers of cases—and you assess the number of hospitalizations and deaths that occur now, versus what the numbers looked like earlier in the pandemic—things truly seem to be headed in a better direction.
With that being said, we’re not all out of the woods yet.
A New Variant Could Set Us Back
At any point, a new variant could threaten to slip past our current protective treatments.
This is the thing about Covid. It has proven to be a tricky virus with the potential to adapt at a surprisingly fast rate.
This makes it difficult to foresee what’s actually going to happen with it.
Currently, only about 2% of people in the US population live in counties that are considered ‘high risk’ for Covid 19 exposure.
Even over the course of the next few weeks, we will probably see a decrease in the number of hospitalizations and deaths that Covid will inflict.
And this means that, if all goes as it has continued to go, we may get to have a relatively normal spring and summer.
Researchers And Doctors Are ‘Optimistic’ About The Spring And Summer
Dr. William Lang, medical director for WorldClinic and former White House deputy physician, had this to say about the upcoming year.
“I am very optimistic… I’m optimistic for what things look like for everybody being able to get back to normal activities over the summer.”
Of course, this doesn’t mean that we’re going to experience a spring and/or summer without Covid. Odds are good that we will never fully shake this new virus. It will probably settle in as a seasonal virus, not so unlike the flu.
But at least the numbers are looking up—and we have a hope for things to get back to some semblance of ‘normal’ over the coming months.
This is likely due to the high immunity that humans have built up, both through vaccination and previous infection.
David Montefiori, a virologist at Duke University Medical Center, had this to say on the topic:
“This virus has thrown us some real curveballs… Thinking of this as a seasonal virus like flu, that hasn’t been the case so far. The variants seem to be periodic… roughly every four to six months, we have a new variant. We might have another surge later this year, even early summer, but if there isn’t one, that’s saying the immunity we’ve built up as a population is doing a good job.”
