it will translate to hospitalizations going back up,” she said. “My concern is (if in a) couple of weeks we continue to see an increase in cases. Hospitalizations tend to lag behind case rates by about three weeks and are a poor measure of current community transmission, said Marney White, professor at Yale University School of Public Health. or an existing one causes a surge in cases, some health experts worry the CDC's new metrics may not recognize it until it's too late. “I hate to boil down everything about COVID-19 into a single county level map that has three shades of color.” “COVID will be around for a long time, there’s no doubt about that,” said Jason Salemi, associate professor of epidemiology at the University of South Florida’s College of Public Health.
While the sea of full faces may make it seem like the pandemic is over, experts warn it's far from done, and some worry the new metrics may fall short of projecting a community's true COVID-19 risk. Last month, the CDC changed its guidance for masking to include hospital capacity, and raised the threshold for positive cases. Today, more than 98% of the nation's counties no longer fall under the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendation to mask up. these days, it's likely you'll be greeted by unmasked faces in public. What’s the future of coronavirus in America? “COVID will be around for a long time, there’s no doubt about that,” one expert told USA TODAY.While COVID-19 cases have fallen across the U.S., the CDC is still reporting nearly 40,000 new cases and 1,500 deaths per day.counties are not required to wear a mask, according to the latest CDC guidance.