We're Heading Toward A COVID Surge — Here's When It's Predicted To Peak

It's hard to predict COVID infections, but rates are high and growing throughout the country. Here’s what you should do to keep you and your loved ones safe.

Those sniffles likely aren’t a summer cold; COVID-19 is everywhere right now.

And things are expected to get worse before they get better. Some experts predict virus rates will continue to rise as we ride out this summer infection surge.

Jay Weiland, an infectious disease modeler, shared on social media that he predicts the summer COVID-19 wave will hit a peak in early September. So, now’s the time to follow COVID prevention strategies such as wearing a mask in crowded spaces and washing your hands well.

Jenn Dowd, a professor of demography and population health at the University of Oxford in England, referenced Weiland’s prediction model in her Substack newsletter, Data for Health, along with recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that shows COVID infections rising in all but five states. “Since the data are lagging by a week, it’s likely levels are already higher, with a predicted peak in early September, just in time for back-to-school,” Dowd wrote in her newsletter.

This prediction should be taken with a grain of salt, though, experts say. COVID has proven to be anything but predictable over the last five-plus years.