Next coronavirus peaks will 'by far' exceed the current one, expert warns

People watch a concert at the Full Throttle Saloon during the 80th Annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in Sturgis, South Dakota on August 9, 2020.
(Image credit: Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)

Infectious disease experts are warning Americans to rethink their priorities with winter approaching more swiftly than people would like to think, bringing with it the possibility of an even worse coronavirus crisis.

The problem is many people aren't taking advantage of the breathing room summer provides to curb the virus' spread, opting instead to return to pre-pandemic routines, Stat News reports. "We just continue to squander every bit of opportunity we get with this epidemic to get it under control," said epidemiologist Michael Mina, an assistant professor in Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health and associate medical director of clinical microbiology at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital. "The best time to squash a pandemic is when the environmental characteristics slow transmission. It's your one opportunity in the year, really, to leverage that extra assistance and get transmission under control."

There's still time do that, per Stat, but if Americans don't act quickly, they can expect bleaker-than-usual winter months. Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, predicted that, without a new lockdown or barring an effective vaccine before the end of the year, winter will force people indoors and exacerbate the pandemic, which he said will see peaks "by far" exceeding the one the U.S. just experienced in recent weeks. Read more at Stat News.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.