After weeks of coronavirus patients flooding emergency rooms in Michigan, the worst COVID-19 hot spot in the nation, hospitalizations are finally falling.
“We’re clearly turning the corner,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. In the United States, even as a sense of hope spreads, there remain strong reasons for caution. The pace of vaccinations is slowing, and experts now believe that herd immunity in the United States may not be attainable. More transmissible variants of the virus are also spreading, threatening to undermine the progress from vaccinations.
It is also possible that the virus could surge again more widely in the fall and winter, when viruses like the flu are typically dominant. The hopeful outlook has left some cities grappling with new tensions over an old topic: rules around masks. In Kenosha, Wisconsin, this week, the Common Council rejected a push to remove a mask mandate even as the county health department said mass vaccination clinics would soon close because of dwindling demand.
With 40% of adult New Yorkers fully vaccinated, the city is barreling toward a full reopening. Starting May 19, restaurants, stores, theaters and museums will be allowed to return to near full capacity for the first time since the pandemic began, and tickets for fall Broadway shows will go on sale this week.
In one example of that, Washington state has seen increasing case numbers and hospitalizations in recent weeks, despite rising vaccination numbers and restrictions that have left restaurants and other businesses operating at 50% capacity in much of the state.
This has sprouted people's false sense of security and not abiding by covid protocols. They feel they can't infect others or become infected. The assumption is the virus will be eradicated after vaccination. The media and government are complicit here in spreading misleading info