3 Reasons Why Summer 2021 COVID Case Numbers Are Higher Than in 2020

How is that possible?

If someone was to ask you whether you thought this summer was better, or worse than last summer with COVID-19, what would you guess? If you said that summer 2021 was worse than summer 2020, you'd be correct, at least as far as the numbers go according to News 10.

Here's how the numbers look, last summer around this time we saw an average of 66,784 new COVID cases every day. This year we are seeing more new cases with the 7-day-average reported last Sunday topping 79,000 new cases and experts say that number hasn't peaked just yet and might not until October.

What is the case of all of this? Health experts say it comes down to three main factors. The first being that when we reopened things it happened extremely fast, and most stopped social distancing, wearing masks and most places lifted capacity restrictions. All of that has led to the spike in numbers with Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco saying, "In summer of 2021, we began the summer with wild abandon. We were fearless. In fact, we tried to make up for the past year of missed social activities."

Another factor that is causing a rise in numbers is that we didn't reach "herd immunity" quickly enough. President Biden hoped that by July 4th, 70% of Americans would have gotten at least one dose of the available vaccines. That didn't happen, we eventually got there, but it happened about a month late and in that time, the delta variant "wreaked havoc." Delta spreading as quickly as it has over the last few months has led to a rise in new cases almost everywhere, including by as much as 1,000% in New York.

All of these factors and numbers are not good, but there is a silver lining to some of this. With all of the new COVID cases being reported every day, the number of hospitalizations and deaths is not as bad as last summer. We saw more than 1,000 people dying every day for several weeks last year and as of now, that number is around 300.