Mokdad was sharply critical of the new guidance on mask-wearing from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). By saying that vaccinated people no longer have to wear masks in most cases, he said, the CDC gave a license to unvaccinated people not to wear them or to persist in their noncompliant behavior.
Because of the steep decline in mask-wearing he expects because of that decision, the IHME now projects a rise in COVID-19 cases as early as August, he said.
Different Views
Three other infectious disease experts all told Medscape Medical News that although a winter surge is possible, they’re optimistic that increased vaccination will either head it off or make it much less dangerous than last winter’s escalation.
Peter Katonah, MD, professor of medicine and public health and chair of the infection working group at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), said it was dangerous to make predictions so far ahead, but he wouldn’t say that IHME is wrong.
At this point, however, vaccines seem to be walloping COVID-19 everywhere they have become widespread, including in the United States, where case numbers are down in every state, he noted.
The CDC directive that vaccinated people can unmask, Katonah said, will probably lead to increased vaccinations, he said. However, he emphasized, masking and social distancing by the unvaccinated will be essential to beating the virus.
“Vaccination has to be accompanied by that for you to really succeed [in wiping out COVID-19]. So if there’s a drop-off in that, I think it’s going to be detrimental, and we’re going to go into a roller coaster ride without brakes,” Katonah said.
Natural Immunity Doesn’t Last
Katonah rejected the idea that we can add those who have already been infected with COVID-19 to vaccinated people to reach the 70%-80% level of coverage needed for herd immunity.
“First, there’s an overlap: some people who were infected later got vaccinated. The second issue is that once you’re infected, your immunity goes away fairly fast. So you don’t just count the people who are infected, but the people who were recently infected,” he said. He estimated that natural immunity might not last longer than 3 months.
