For nearly a year, the U.S. has been dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, but recently COVID-19 cases have been decreasing. According to data from the Center for Disease Control (CDC), COVID cases in the U.S. have dropped by about two thirds. Graphs on the CDC website show a spike in cases in early to mid-January with around 250,000 cases being reported each day. Reports of new cases have been steadily dropping since then with an average of 60,000 new COVID cases being reported each day in late February. What could be causing the significant decrease in cases?

Elizabethtown College health liaison Eileen Wagener provided some thoughts as to why COVID cases are decreasing. She explained that the surge, or general increase, in COVID cases were most likely caused by activities over the holiday season, such as large meetings and traveling, starting at around Thanksgiving. As these activities decreased once the holidays ended, COVID cases decreased with them. She also said that people who responded to the surge of cases by practicing social distancing and wearing masks in public also played a role in mitigating the spread of COVID. 

Wagener, however, had some pushback to the belief that present vaccination efforts as well as immunity for people previously infected with COVID are helping. “Herd immunity is not thought to play a part in the decrease of cases. To achieve this, 70 to 85 percent of the population would need to be vaccinated, and we are nowhere close to meeting that goal,” she said. 

Here in Elizabethtown, we are also seeing the same downward trend of COVID cases. In Lancaster County, there were 102 new cases reported as of Feb. 23, compared to 967 cases reported as of Jan. 29, roughly a month prior. Elizabethtown College has also seen a sharp decrease in cases, though there were already few to begin with compared to last semester. As of the most recent COVID-19 campus update email sent Monday, Feb. 22, there are only three active positive student COVID cases; one student is isolating on campus and the other two off campus with no students in quarantine. 1,336 students have been tested since Jan. 1, so the College has been exceptional with keeping cases at a very low level. To hopefully continue that trend, students who are living and working on campus will be tested for COVID at a weekly rate of 10 percent, and student teachers with placements in local schools will be tested at a rate of 25 percent. 

Wagener believes that the country will continue to see a downward trend of COVID cases as we head into the spring and summer months of 2021. Vaccination will have a large impact on the decrease as more vaccines are administered and more sites to vaccinate become available. Hopefully, the U.S. will soon reach the goal of immunizing 70 to 85 percent of the population, as well as having vulnerable groups such as the elderly and those with health conditions that affect their immune system fully vaccinated.  

As of Wednesday, Feb. 24, approximately 45 million people in the U.S. have received one dose of the COVID vaccine, and about 20 million of those people have received both doses. The percentage of the U.S. population receiving one dose and both doses are 13.6 percent and 6.2 percent respectively. Because it will still take time to reach herd immunity from COVID-19, one must still protect themselves and others from COVID whether they have been vaccinated or not. 

“It is still important in the meantime to continue to mask, practice hand hygiene and practice social distancing as we move forward toward this goal, so we don’t have an uptick in cases again,” Wagener said.