After weeks of lockdown, states across the country are now preparing to lift their orders to shelter in place — a move top health professionals consider premature: Without serological testing and without a vaccine, a return to normal means the number of COVID-19 infections will likely increase.
“There’s not a lot that we know about the virus, since it’s so new,” says physician Bruce Levy, chief of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “But it does seem like there are factors that can predispose people to a more severe illness.”
Generally, people with underlying health conditions like diabetes or those who are immunocompromised are most likely to develop these severe cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even mild cases of COVID-19 seem miserable, but severe cases, according to reports, are more likely to result in ICU admission, ventilation and death.
