US health experts worry about major surge in COVID-19 after Thanksgiving

Two top American health experts, also members of White House Task Force on COVID-19, on Sunday feared a major surge in coronavirus pandemic after this week's Thanksgiving festival, which tritionally involves garing of family and friends over dinner.

number of new COVID-19 cases reported in UnS topped 200,000 for first time on Friday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Since January, when first infections were reported in US, America's total number of cases has surpassed 13 million. More than 265,000 people have died.

"If you look at second wave, we h less than 25,000 cases a day, we h way less mortality. We’re entering this post-Thanksgiving surge with three, four and 10 times as much disease across country," Dr Deborah Birx, who is coordinator of taskforce, told CBS News.

"That's what worries us most. We are deeply worried about what could happen post-Thanksgiving," Birx said.

Appearing on ar Sunday talk show, Dr Anthony Fauci, a prominent member of task force and Director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, too expressed serious concerns over sudden jump in COVID-19 cases in US in coming days and weeks. "In next few weeks, we're going to have same sort of thing, and perhaps even two or three weeks down line we may see a surge upon a surge," he told ABC news.

"We don't want to frighten people, but that's just reality. We said that se things would happen as we got into cold wear and as we began travelling. And y've happened. It's going to happen again,” he ded.

"We have to be careful w because re almost certainly is going to be an uptick because of what has happened with travel. We understand importance of families getting toger, and it's just something that we have to deal with, that we likely will have an increase in cases as we get into colder weeks of winter and as we approach Christmas season," Fauci said.

Countries that have mitigated have turned around surge. States that have mitigated have h a turnaround of inflection of curve. So it does work, he asserted, pleing Americans to follow mitigation measures. "And as we've just heard, help is on way. Vaccines are really right on horizon. We'll be having vaccines available for higher-priority people towards middle and end of December and as we get into January and February," he said.

"So, everyone is totally empatic about fatigue that everyone is feeling. But if we can hang in re a bit longer and do fundamental things, wearing of masks uniformly, avoiding crowds in congregate settings, keeping physical distance, washing your hands - y seem simple in ermity of problem that we're facing, but y do make a difference," Fauci told ABC news.

Birx also pleed with people to follow mitigation measures and go for COVID19 testing if y attended a Thanksgiving garing. "If you’re young and you gared (for Thanksgiving), you need to be tested about 5 to 10 days later, but you need to assume you’re infected and t go near your grandparents and ors without a mask," Birx said. White House task force has also urged mayors and goverrs to increase availability of testing.

"What we do kw works is mask mandates. Starting with mask mandates, followed by, if you have high case numbers… one first things you should do is close s where people cant wear masks and we kw where that is, that’s bars and indoor restaurants," she said.

Responding to a question, Birx said that she hopes to brief president-elect Joe Biden on Monday. "We’ve spent last nine months really developing sophisticated databases that are bringing toger information from across country down to county level. I think one thing we will bring to Biden ministration in that discussion is how y want to see data, because data isn’t helpful if it’s t actionable," Birx said. 

(Im Credits: AP)