Health care experts are warning that it might be too soon to think the COVID-19 pandemic will be over by the end of 2021.                                                        

The emergency chief of the World Health Organization said it was “premature” to think that the pandemic might be stopped by the end of the year, but the roll-out of vaccines could at least help dramatically reduce hospitalizations and death. Dr. Michael Ryan said at a press briefing Monday that the world’s singular focus right now should be to keep transmission of COVID-19 as low as possible.

President Joe Biden’s top public health officials warned Monday that the U.S. could “lose the hard-earned ground we have gained” if cases plateau  at their current level.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said she was “deeply concerned” as new case counts stall but states continue their rollbacks of virus-related restrictions.

Another indication, it took the U.S. only two months, January and February of this year to accumulate 160,209 COVID deaths. That’s more than the country registered in the first six months of the pandemic, and more than the current total for all but two nations, Brazil and Mexico.

It should also come as sobering news that on Sunday, for the first time in more than a month, a majority of states, 29 in all reported rising case counts.

Also in February, known variant cases quintupled from 471 to 2,463 even as total coronavirus infections were dropping from a peak in January.