TAMPA, Fla. — The state of Florida is seeing a decline in the daily new COVID-19 numbers.
The CDC reported 49,339 new COVID-19 cases in Florida on Saturday. The state's total is now over five million cases since the start of the pandemic.
Dr. Thomas Unnasch, a public health professor at the University of South Florida, said he believes we may have reached the peak of this wave.
"I am predicting based upon what we’re seeing up in New York State or in Washington, D.C., is what we’re going to see is this decline is going to start to accelerate and the case numbers are going to decline almost as fast as they went up," said Dr. Unnasch.
Dr. Unnasch said he believes eventually COVID-19 will be handled like the flu as more treatments become available.
"There’s going to be a lot more tests available and the Pfizer and Merck drugs are starting to become available. They're at a really limited level right now, but I’d imagine that’s going to increase really, really dramatically in the next 3-4 weeks," he said.
"You may say you feel like you've got the sniffles, you go to an urgent care center, they'll run a rapid COVID test. They'll say, yep you're positive and they’ll give you this drug. You’ll have to take it for five days and you'll feel better and I think that’s going to be a lot better situation to be in," said Unnasch.
Unnasch encouraged people to still wear a mask in crowded places. He also suggested people get vaccinated including a booster shot.
"We’re seeing a rise in new variants that are coming out each of which has been more infectious than the one before and as each one becomes more infectious it is able to infect more people," he said.