Fever, still a symptom in 75% of people who end up hospitalized for COVID 19, may not be the best indicator of infection according to many physicians. That’s because there is large number of asymptomatic individuals who have the virus and can spread it.

Dr. Steven Fox, who is the medical advisor for the Home Care Association of America, stated to a group of home care executives that coughing and sneezing are likely the most common ways the virus spreads.

“One sneeze or cough from a symptomatic person can infect 2,000”, Dr. Fox stated.

He pointed out that one sneeze can contain 200 million virus particles. It takes roughly 100,000 virus particles in a person’s face to get infected, he said, which is why one uncovered sneeze is so problematic.

Take the recent birthday party in Pasadena as an example. One attendee with a cough infected five other people, starting a new COVID 19 cluster.

Dr. Fox said that based on current studies in California, he believes the infection rate is probably 20 to 30 times what is reported and known, as many people never knew they were infected. He expects a vaccine to likely be available to the public by August 2021 at the earliest.

Until then, he expects our society will go through a period of adaptation. What will be needed to shore up our community health is a group of caregivers who can be trained at a higher level to assist people recovering from the health effects of hospitalization for COVID 19. He stated that for each day a person who is elderly is hospitalized, they need 3 days of rehabilitation and therapy. The safest place for that care post hospitalization is home. Providers such as At Home Nursing Care, Inc. are working to improve staff training in this area as the expectations are that we’ll be living with COVID as some level for the next couple of years.