New York Lifts Mask Mandate as U.S. COVID-19 Cases Reach 33 Million

Today, New York (which was the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic) lifted its statewide mask mandate. More than half of all New York residents over the age of 18 have been fully vaccinated. 

As masks come off in the Empire State, the United States has now recorded more than 33 million cases of COVID-19. According to Johns Hopkins University, there have been 33,012,767 cases resulting in the deaths of 587,564 Americans representing a mortality rate of 1.8%. 

The good news is that community spread of COVID-19 has dropped dramatically over the past several weeks. When the U.S. reached 32 million cases on April 24th, I expressed anxiety that case numbers will accelerate as it took 15 days to get from 31 million to 32 million cases after it took 16 days to get from 28 million to 29 million, 29 million to 30 million and 30 million to 31 million cases. 

Well, it has taken 25 days to get from 32 million to 33 million cases. Over the past 25 days, the number of new cases has dropped from 66,000 to 27,000 cases a day with daily cases below 30,000 for the fourth straight day. Obviously, the vaccines and the Biden Administration's dissemination of said vaccines across the country has done wonders. The Biden Administration is now in a position to send vaccine doses abroad and plans to send out 20 million by the end of June. 

It is quite possible we could soon reach Dr. Fauci's long stated goal of getting down to fewer than 10,000 new cases a day. Of course, it's quite possible that New York and other jurisdictions lifting their mask mandates could cause cases to climb as not everyone will agree to be vaccinated. So what happens if it takes 20 days to get from 33 million to 34 million COVID-19 cases? Will vaccines be enough? We might never reach herd immunity though not for lack of trying.

The wild card is if COVID variants are resistant to the vaccines. If they are will new vaccines need to be developed? Or will monoclonal antibodies and other therapeutics help ease the burden? Of course, there is also the question of fully vaccinated Americans requiring a booster shot. Pfizer has indicated that a booster might be required after 8 to 12 months but is in the midst of conducting clinical trials.

While lingering questions remain we are far closer to rounding the turn on COVID-19 than we have ever been. We can only hope there will be no detours, roadblocks or speedbumps before we get there.