On today’s episode of the 5 Things podcast: Is this the fifth COVID-19 wave?
Health reporter Elizabeth Weise considers whether this is …
On today’s episode of the 5 Things podcast: Is this the fifth COVID-19 wave? Health reporter Elizabeth Weise considers whether this is just the new normal. Plus, closing arguments are expected in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, Ghislaine Maxwell heads to trial, today’s the deadline to sign up for child tax credits and hundreds were injured in Egypt from scorpion stings after flooding. Podcasts: True crime, in-depth interviews and more USA TODAY podcasts right here. Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text. Taylor Wilson: Good morning. I’m Taylor Wilson, and this is 5 Things you need to know Monday, the 15th of November 2021. Today, a potential fifth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, plus closing arguments in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, and more. Here are some of the top headlines. COVID-19 cases and deaths are again rising in most US states for the first time in two months. So does this mean we’re into a fifth wave of the pandemic, or is this just winter? Health reporter Elizabeth Weise considers. Elizabeth Weise: It is too early to say this could just be winter. The coronavirus has come back. The common cold, they peak in the winter. They pretty much go away in the summer. SARS-COV-2, the virus that causes COVID, is a coronavirus, so that may be just what it’s going to look like moving forward. We may be beyond waves. It’s a little hard to know yet. There’s a surge everywhere in the Northern tier, kind of the Northern part of the country where people go inside in the winter because it gets cold. There’s a surge in cases in all states, whether they have high or low vaccination rates. The distinction is that in the more highly vaccinated states, there’s more cases, but few of those cases are going to a hospital or dying. When we start thinking about waves, we need to think really clearly about what is it that the vaccine does and what is it that we wanted it to do. And what we wanted it to do was keep people out of the hospital and keep people from dying. And it does that actually still quite well. I was just on a call with a bunch of very smart epidemiologists and virologists and they were all saying, « Yes, we’re seeing more cases, but folks aren’t dying. And so it’s a win. » Yes, we may have waves, but they’re not waves that are filling up hospitals and killing tens of thousands of Americans. » Taylor Wilson: You can stay up on all our updates across the USA TODAY Network by visiting our live COVID-19 updates page.
