Experts believe pandemic has potential to improve in 2022

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WSFA) - The state of Alabama is still solid red on the Alabama Department of Public Health’s COVID-19 dashboard, indicating high levels of community transmission in every county.

This comes as COVID-19 variants sweep across the state.

“We’ve certainly not hit the peak of either influenza season nor of this COVID surge,” said Dr. Don Williamson, president of the Alabama Hospital Association. “So I think we have to look at January with some concern.”

However, as Alabamians jump into 2022 they could see some improvement.

“I don’t believe, and that’s all it is at this point, I don’t believe that we’ll see the same levels of COVID hospitalizations this January we saw last January,” Williamson said. “But I do think we’re going to see number of new COVID cases diagnosed every day be dramatically higher than anything we’ve seen to date.”

Officials with the World Health Organization believe the pandemic could end this year if vaccination rates increase.

On Friday, the WHO director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in a statement: “If the right choices are taken, we can turn this pandemic around.”

“This virus will continue to evolve and threaten our health system if we don’t improve the collective response,” Ghebreyesus said Wednesday.

WHO estimates show a potential to vaccinate all adults across the world and provide booster shots to high-risk groups, according to CNN.

Experts say the best way to stay out of the hospital is to get the COVID-19 vaccine.