SURGE IS ‘ALMOST INEVITABLE’
But experts say it can be mitigated
Massachusetts may have flattened its coronavirus curve, but experts eyeing spikes across the Sun Belt are saying now is not the time to grow lax — warning that a second wave is “almost inevitable” here and that it could have devastating health and economic impacts.
“Pandemic fatigue is real. I feel it. I get it. I want this to be over — but it’s not,” said Dr. Todd Ellerin, director of infectious diseases at South Shore Health. “The virus has not gone away. It is still present, and we have to be careful.”
Coronavirus infections in the United States reached another single-day high Friday, with cases rising in 40 states heading into the holiday weekend.
Government leaders from California to Texas to Florida — the latter of which set another daily record for infections Saturday — have been forced to roll back reopening plans and issue sobering pleas for people to wear masks as hospitals near capacity. Gov. Charlie Baker this week reiterated his warning that “COVID-19 will not be taking a summer vacation” even as he relaxed self-quarantine guidelines for seven
Northeast states and gave the green light for the next reopening phase Monday.
“The surge is a real cautionary tale for the Northeast,” said Dr. Matthew Fox, a Boston University epidemiology professor. “The lesson is that if you haven’t suppressed the virus — which we’ve done a good job in Massachusetts and New York, but we haven’t contained it — over time it will start to come back and it doesn’t take too long before you see a real surge if people don’t continue to follow public health guidance.”
Dr. Davidson Hamer, an infectious diseases expert and colleague of Fox’s at BU, said a resurgence of the virus in Massachusetts is “almost inevitable.”
But medical experts say the virus’s dire effects can be mitigated by continuing to practice the same public health guidelines they’ve been urging for months: Wearing masks, staying 6 feet apart and keeping up good hand hygiene.
Reopenings of stores, restaurants and even gyms come Monday may feel like a return to the ordinary, but Fox said the Sun Belt spikes make it clear that “going back to normal is not realistic.”
“We have to continue to keep our distance, stay away from people as much as we can, and when we do need to go near people we need masks and testing and tracing contacts,” he said.
“Every effort that we make now will pay off over the long term,” he said.
People’s lives and livelihoods may depend on it. Businesses and restaurants crushed by the economic blow of months of pandemic shutdowns say they’re doing everything they can to reopen as safely as possible, cognizant that any missteps could badly hurt their recovery.
“We need to do this the right way to make sure customers feel safe the moment they walk into a store and restaurant, and that they will come back,” said Jon Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts.
Bob Luz, president of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association, said that as “painful” as the state’s initial closures were, establishments here can’t afford another round of widespread shutdowns.
“We already anticipate we’ve lost 3,600 of out of 16,000 restaurants that existed on March 1,” Luz said. “If we found ourselves back in that type of closure, it would be nothing short of catastrophic.”