The fast-changing coronavirus has kicked off summer in the U.S. with lots of infections but relatively few deaths. Though it's unclear where COVID-19 may head next, one expert says, “It feels cautiously good right now.”
“And that’s because we’re now at a point that everyone’s immune system has seen either the virus or the vaccine two or three times by now,” said Dr. David Dowdy, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “Over time, the body learns not to overreact when it sees this virus.”As many as 8 out of 10 people in the U.S. have been infected at least once, according to one influential model.
At first, some people said coronavirus was no more deadly than the flu, “and for a long period of time, that wasn’t true,” Aspinall said. Back then, people had no immunity. Treatments were experimental. Vaccines didn’t exist. Big differences separate flu from COVID-19: The behavior of the coronavirus continues to surprise health experts and it’s still unclear whether it will settle into a flu-like seasonal pattern.Last summer — when vaccinations first became widely available in the U.S. — was followed by the delta surge and then the arrival of omicron, which killed 2,600 Americans a day at its peak last February.
“We thought we understood it until these new subvariants emerged,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, an infectious disease specialist at the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas.