“We came from a very high spot, so we had our spike a little bit earlier,” Dr. Sonja Rasmussen, a professor in the departments of pediatrics and epidemiology at the University of Florida College of Medicine, said of her state’s declining cases. She noted that the cooler fall and winter temperatures in the typically tropic climate make it easier for Floridians to spend time outside, where the virus does not spread as easily as it does indoors.

“I think we are really starting to see some seasonality – maybe not winter-spring like we see with the flu, but more when people are more indoors versus outdoors,” she said. “In Florida, we were more indoors in the hot time of the summer, and now we have the opportunity to be more outdoors.”…

The University of Colorado’s hospital was beyond capacity last week, according to Dr. Jonathan Samet, the dean of the university’s public health school and lead of its Covid modeling group, due to a combination of the disease and “all the reasons that people go to hospitals.”

“When I talk to my clinical colleagues, things are full, the ERs are packed,” Samet said, noting that his system can meet current demand but has very little room to expand beyond that point. Emergency orders from Colorado Gov. Jared Polis allow hospitals to transfer patients to other facilities if needed, he said, “but the hospital reserves or the beds are at a lower point than during our big surge a year ago.”