HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — COVID-19 numbers have seen various surges and trends since the pandemic began.
"We've had I think five waves of the virus of which two are pretty prominent, one being January of this year, early January, where we were kind of averaging 5,000 new cases a day in Alabama, and in early September again, we got to those numbers one day up to 11,000, but kind of averaging around five or 6,000," said UAB Division of Pediatric Rheumatology Professor Randy Cron, M.D.
We've also seen variants of the virus. The Delta variant is one of the factors that caused recent surges.
While things seem to be at bay right now and a new variant has yet to rear its head, one health professional thinks we may not see another dominant strain of the virus-like the Delta variant, but we will probably always have some form of COVID.
"The most likely answer's no... it probably will never die off and we probably we will not be able to eradicate this virus, like we have other infections, like polio, largely polio and smallpox, things of that nature," said UAB Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine Professor Kevin Harrod, Ph.D.
This begs the question, will we need COVID boosters in the future similar to how many get the flu shot every year? Harrod says it's likely. It may not be a reality yet, but in the future, reoccurring boosters may be recommended.
"It's likely that there will need to be boosters for two reasons. One is that there may be sub-variants or mutations in the virus that render the current vaccines less effective. Another would be that immunity can wane over time, particularly in the elderly and those who are immunocompromised," said Harrod.