The post-holiday coronavirus surge was real — until it wasn’t.
Warnings of a coronavirus surge after the holidays looked plausible — until they weren't.
On the Sunday after Christmas, Dr. Anthony Fauci had a warning for CNN viewers: The nation may be on the brink of a “post-seasonal . . . Christmas, New Year’s surge” of coronavirus cases.
For weeks, as COVID-19 cases climbed across the country, Fauci spread the word that the U.S. could face a “surge upon a surge.” Christmas could be worse than Thanksgiving, he said, because the holiday gatherings often lasted longer, sometimes a week or more.
Dr. Michael Osterholm, then an adviser to President-elect Joe Biden, predicted a “surge upon a surge upon a surge.”
Mainstream media outlets warned readers to “brace for another onslaught of COVID-19 cases,” warning that “the post-Christmas surge has begun.” The Atlantic suggested that “it’s time to hibernate,” after previously predicting a COVID “tsunami” in Iowa that never materialized.
Forecasting models published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in early January showed the virus continuing to grow and spread for several more weeks.
Even into early January, that looked like the most likely scenario. On January 8, the CDC reported 315,106 new coronavirus cases, the highest number yet during the pandemic.
But then, the number of new cases started to fall off. And not just fall off, but plummet. On Monday, new cases fell to 55,419, a more than 80 percent drop-off from that January peak.
“It’s remarkable how much it’s plummeted,” Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, tells National Review.
While the Biden administration has suggested there may not be a return to normality in the U.S. until next Christmas, some prominent medical professionals now are optimistic it could be much sooner.
Writing in the Wall Street Journal last week, Dr. Marty Makary with the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the Bloomberg School of Public Health predicted that with a combination of natural immunity from prior infections and ramped up vaccinations, “COVID will be mostly gone by April, allowing Americans to resume normal life.”
Dr. Makary believes that natural immunity is more widespread in the U.S. than most medical experts acknowledge, and he suggests that natural immunity is the only explanation for the “consistent and rapid decline in daily cases since January 8.” He noted in the op-ed that Americans traveled more in December than they had since March; behavior probably didn’t suddenly improve over the holidays; the vaccine rollout didn’t really ramp up until mid January; and vaccines take weeks to kick in.
Attempts by National Review to reach Dr. Makary for additional comment were unsuccessful.
Dr. Offit says that Dr. Makary’s estimates were “overly optimistic.” But the U.S. has an opportunity to get hold of the pandemic over the coming months, he says.
Dr. Osterholm recently predicted a large spring surge driven by new virus strains. Dr. Offit takes issue with that, saying,
I don’t see that happening. I think the more likely story is that we will continue to vaccinate people. The weather will get warmer. There’s already a lot of people who have immunity now from being exposed to the virus. … This, at its heart, is a winter respiratory virus.
Dr. Offit, too, believes that the number of people who’ve been infected with the virus is undercounted: “It’s at least 100 million people in this country who have already been exposed to this virus and are therefore immune, at least immune from severe disease.” And as vaccinations continue, more and more people will be protected.
The virus will return next winter, he predicts. The question is, will enough people be inoculated?
I think this spring and this summer and this fall, we have a decision to make as a country, which is, can we have about 80 percent of the adult population immune by either natural infection or vaccination? We have to get to that 80 percent mark, because if we don’t, what’s going to happen is next winter you will see a surge again. What worries me is the complacency that will come this summer if the numbers are low.
Skepticism is understandable, Dr. Offit adds, particularly for new vaccines made with new technology in less than a year. But the vaccines have proven effective across all age, racial, and ethnic groups, as well as with those who have co-morbidities.
“It’s been given to tens of millions of people, and it doesn’t appear to have a serious side effect problem. We’re good,” Dr. Offit notes. “Your skepticism at this point should melt away. If it hasn’t, then it’s not skepticism any more. . . . Then it’s cynicism.”
The drop-off in coronavirus cases in January and February has been “surprising,” he says. There are likely several explanations — seasonality, post-holiday shifts in behavior, and the rollout of vaccines. But mostly, “I think this is all winter . . . what you’re seeing is a winter respiratory virus doing what it does in the winter.”
Thomas Duszynski, the director of epidemiology education at the Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at Indiana University and Purdue University in Indianapolis, tells NRO that coronavirus cases began climbing around Labor Day, and the surges that were predicted after Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas really “were buried in just such large community spread across . . . many parts of the nation.” There appears to have been a short post-Christmas surge in cases into early January, he notes.
One reason cases may have fallen so sharply, he suggests, is that winter is finally keeping people at home:
We got through the holidays. Everybody went where they wanted to go. They got the disease, and now they’re starting to do the things we’re asking them to do. They’re staying home. There isn’t any place to go.
Duszynski built a calculator to better understand when the nation may achieve herd immunity. According to his calculation, it might not be until October. But his calculator accounts only for the distribution of the already-approved Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, and it doesn’t factor in natural immunity because it’s not clear yet how long it lasts or how effective it is at preventing other strains of the virus. If the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, it will probably speed things up, Duszynski says. The FDA on Wednesday reported that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine meets the requirements for emergency use. Its formal authorization is expected Saturday.
“It’s going to be awhile yet,” he says of reaching herd immunity. “But if the Johnson & Johnson vaccine gets approved, these numbers change to where we maybe move it back into August or September, instead of October. And maybe even late July.”
Dr. Offit says that so far the vaccines have been shown to prevent severe and critical infections from the different variants of the virus that are spreading around the globe. The U.S. will continue to face some risk until the virus is controlled globally, he cautions.
“We just need to get vaccinated,” he says. “Write that in your article. Get vaccinated.”
Staff writer Tobias Hoonhout contributed to this report.