COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are starting to fall about as fast as they surged six weeks ago.
In Florida, cases are the lowest since Christmas and hospitalizations are down about 10% what they were five days ago.
“We are seeing normal volumes in our emergency room. We are seeing patients that are coming in with COVID and being admitted, but it’s more of normalcy with COVID now, we’re on the back end of this curve,” said Dr. Randy Katz, Associate District Medical Director for Emergency Services for Memorial Healthcare System.
South Florida is on the back end, which is a relief to many. But parts of north Florida and the Panhandle are still seeing increases as well as other parts of the country and the world.
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As long as the virus keeps spreading, Dr. Katz says there will be more waves.
“There’s a huge portion of people in the world that are unvaccinated, this virus will continue to replicate and spread and evolve and mutate, there’s no doubt we will have other mutations and other surges,” Dr. Katz said.
His counterparts at other hospitals agree.
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“The more people that get it, the more chances there are for an even worse wave to come after this. We don’t know what the future holds, we don’t know if we get a worse wave in two weeks, in a month in two months, that’s the scary part,” said Dr. Anton Gomez, an ER Physician at Kendall Regional Medical Center.
It's scary, but if armed with vaccines and better treatments for those with COVID, we can hopefully better navigate future waves.
Dr. Katz suggests we learn to live our lives in between the surges.
“We have to learn to live with this virus. There will be other surges and when we do have one, we need to protect ourselves and maybe change our behavior for a few months, and that’s OK. That’ll help reduce loss of life and overwhelm the hospitals, but in between, we need to live our lives, keep kids in school. We need to have a sense of normalcy in our lives, I think that’s very important,” said Dr. Katz.
Dr. Katz implores people to get vaccinated and boosted. He says an overwhelming majority of people with COVID-19 in the ICU are unvaccinated.
