Is a 5th wave of Covid-19 coming this winter?

Rachel Nania

After a brief lull, new cases of Covid-19 are starting to creep back up, both in the United States of America and in Europe, leaving many to wonder whether we’re headed toward a fifth wave, just in time for winter.

The answer, experts say, isn’t as simple as a yes or no. And that’s because we’re in a much different place in the pandemic this year, compared to last.

“It certainly does feel like a bit of déjà vu, but it’s not the same type of déjà vu,” said Syra Madad, an infectious disease epidemiologist and senior director of the ?System-wide Special Pathogens Program at New York City Health + Hospitals.

Vaccines will curb infections and illness

For starters, about 60 percent of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated against Covid, meaning nearly 200 million people will be highly protected from hospitalisation if they get infected with the coronavirus. Millions of newly eligible kids ?5 to 11 will only add to those numbers.

“So even if cases go up this winter, we’re very unlikely to see a return to the overcrowded ICUs and makeshift morgues of a year ago,” said David Dowdy, M.D., associate professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, at a recent media briefing.

Unvaccinated people are over 11 times as likely to die from Covid as vaccinated individuals, recent data from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention shows.

At last winter’s peak, when the vaccines were just rolling out, an average of 3 400 people were dying of the illness each day. Now that average, while still alarming, hovers around 1 000.

And though the vaccines are not 100 percent effective at preventing infections, having a significant share of the population vaccinated will help to keep case counts from surging out of control, experts predict. Unvaccinated individuals are roughly six times as likely to test positive for Covid as their vaccinated peers.

What’s more, people who are vaccinated and do contract Covid are less likely to spread it to others, studies show.

Last November, the U.S. was seeing about 160 000 new infections each day; now, we’re counting about 80 000, “which is still very high, but you’re not seeing that exponential growth that we saw last year,” Madad said.

“Last year, everybody was at risk,” said Catherine Troisi, an infectious disease epidemiologist with he University of Texas Health School of Public Health.

“This year, you can protect yourself.”