HOUSTON — Contact tracing after Christmas could get complicated as COVID-19 cases continue to rise. The lessons we learned from Thanksgiving are helping doctors better understand how the virus is spreading in the community.
"The incubation period is between a week and two weeks," said Dr. Linda Yancey, an Infectious Disease Specialist at Memorial Hermann.
She says that's when we started to see cases after Thanksgiving.
“Lots of people gathered, we have lots of cases, we are definitely surging in all of the hospitals across the Houston area," Yancey said.
Because of what doctors have gleaned so far from holiday gatherings, they’re now suggesting you wait to get tested until seven days after exposure.
“Don’t get a test a day later or three days later. It does take some time for the test to turn positive so if you get it too soon you are going to end up with a false sense of security," she said.
The vaccine offers a solution but not right away, it takes seven days to get 80 percent immunity. Then a second dose three weeks later takes you up to 95 percent. Local health experts said it’s the best shot we have at beating the rising caseload in Houston.
“This is going to be a really hard January, we are expecting cases to continue to rise probably through mid-January, hopefully by the end of January we will begin to see a decline, but no, we are not through the worst of this yet," Yancey said.
It's possible to get COVID twice. Doctors' best guess is you have 90 days of immunity after getting it the first time. Yet another reason to keep masking up into 2021.