COVID Surge Expected

News 12's Kenan Scott has the latest on what Chattanoogans can expect with this new surge in cases.

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One of president-elect joe biden's top covid-19 advisors has warned americans that they should brace for one of the worst months yet for the pandemic in january due to rise in infections from the christmas holiday.

This comes despite the rollout of two new vaccines with pfizer and moderna.

We go now live to news 12's kenan scott with the latest on what chattanoogans can expect with this new surge in cases.

Emily, andrew i spoke with dr. jay sizemore, the medical director of infection prevention at erlanger, who confirmed the warnings of many health officials that we might be in for a brutal january and february due to a massive increase in infections over the holidays.

He says while he's optimistic about the rollout of the pfizer and moderna vaccines, he says we shouldn't expect infection rates to dwindle until late 2021.

Dr. anthony fauci has warned americans that an already rising tide of covid-19 infections may get another boost as americans gather for the christmas, and now new years holiday.

Despite warnings from the cdc to postpone travel and stay home, more than 7.1 million americans were screened at tsa checkpoints over the last week.

Dr. jay sizemore with erlanger says that's an all-too-familiar pattern, especially given the most recent surge following thanksgiving.

And even with the vaccine on the horizon for most americans, we're by no means out of the woods yet.

"i think given the circumstances, given how much virus is circulating in our community at the moment, given the cool temperatures and given people's fatigue at wearing masks and their desire to be with their family i think that's unfortunately a perfect recipe to see another surge."

With the public giving mixed reactions to the idea of receiving the vaccine, sizemore says that he hopes confidence in it's safeness will increase as time goes on.

However, he warns that we might not start to see infection rates start to dwindle until the second half of 2021.

"hopefully, as more and more people get vaccinated in our community and we're talking up the vaccination there will be an increased confidence that the vaccine is safe.

We know it's effective, so it's just convincing people that it's safe and so that more and more people will get vaccinated over time.

So again, i'm really looking, honestly, at the second half of 2021 before we could likely see a reachable difference over what we're seeing right now."

And sizemore has also said that while icu capacity rates remain steadily high, he is concerned that this newest surge has the possibility of overwhelming the hospital system.

Dade county executive ted