How concerned should we be about COVID-19 at this stage?

Things have changed a lot in the two plus years since the novel coronavirus came on the scene. Americans have had to shelter in place, distance themselves from their loved ones, wear masks and sometimes quarantine for days to keep others safe.

Although more than one million people have in the U.S. have now died from COVID-19, many are wondering what kind of precautions they should be taking around the virus, amid a simultaneous rise in transmission rates and drop in hospitalizations in southeast Michigan.

“The other thing that is really important to know is that as the virus has mutated it’s become much more efficient at causing infection,” — Paul Kilgore, Wayne State University’s Center for Emerging and Infectious Diseases.

Listen: What Michiganders should be doing to protect themselves from COVID-19.

Guests

Paul Kilgore is the co-director of the Center for Emerging and Infectious Diseases at Wayne State University, as well as senior investigator for Henry Ford Health System’s Global Health Initiative. He says people should still be cautious around the virus because it’s still quite transmissible.

“Now we’re seeing covid-19 being able to transmit in the summer,” Kilgore says. “The other thing that is really important to know is that as the virus has mutated it’s become much more efficient at causing infection.”

Dr. Nick Gilpin is the Medical Director of Infection Prevention at Beaumont Health Hospitals. He says hospitals are currently able to handle a larger share of COVID-19 patients than has been true in the past.

“I think our system can bear this burden,” says Gilpin. “We’re not having to turn away from sort of the ordinary services that we provide to the community, like elective surgeries, & imaging & lab services, we’re still able to provide all those key services.”