--- title: A Fifth COVID-19 Wave May Be Coming To the U.S. description: Though COVID-19 case rates are still below levels this same time last year, trends indicate a fifth wave could hit the U.S. these holidays. canonical: https://time.com/6117006/covid-19-fifth-wave/ author: Chris Wilson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2021-11-12T18:04:40.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T10:32:03.949Z article:section: Health og:title: A Fifth COVID-19 Wave May Be Coming To the U.S. og:description: Though COVID-19 case rates are still below levels this same time last year, trends indicate a fifth wave could hit the U.S. these holidays. og:url: https://time.com/6117006/covid-19-fifth-wave/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: A Fifth COVID-19 Wave May Be Coming To the U.S. twitter:description: Though COVID-19 case rates are still below levels this same time last year, trends indicate a fifth wave could hit the U.S. these holidays. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Is a Fifth Wave Coming? Ahead of Holidays, COVID-19 Cases Are Still Below 2020 Levels—For Now > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Health Matters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Health Matters is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. The latest health news and expert advice on living well. Health Matters makes the fast-moving world of health more useful, surprising and human, from the latest science and medical breakthroughs to practical ideas for living better. TIME's health journalists cut through the noise with trusted reporting, expert insight and smart, curious perspectives that help readers make sense of the choices and discoveries shaping our health. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators.  by [Chris Wilson](https://time.com/author/chris-wilson/)  ## Chris Wilson Nov 12, 2021 6:04 PM UTC  by [Chris Wilson](https://time.com/author/chris-wilson/)  ## Chris Wilson Nov 12, 2021 6:04 PM UTC New confirmed cases of COVID-19 are once again rising across a broad region of the United States in what could be an early indication of a fifth wave of infections and related deaths. The timing is particularly inopportune, as millions of Americans prepare to gather for Thanksgiving. While the insurgent virus never strikes everywhere at once, the holidays do. Like the early days of the [second](https://time.com/5852913/covid-second-wave/), [third](https://time.com/5893916/covid-19-coronavirus-third-wave/) and [fourth](https://time.com/6096892/fourth-covid-19-wave-us/) waves, the abrupt flatlining of a precipitous decline in cases is not a good omen when it lasts more than a week. In five of the past seven days, the weekly rolling average of new cases, which is reasonably resistant to daily fluctuations in reporting, has been higher than the day before. This trademark flattening of the curve after an extended decline in the pandemic’s perpetual [two-month cycle](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/01/briefing/delta-peak-covid-caseload.html) typically foretells a spike. The unwelcome reversal comes just 16 days after cases dipped below the level we saw at this time last year, when the pandemic’s devastating third wave was already well on its way. Deaths, meanwhile—which typically lag about two weeks behind cases—remain slightly above their 2020 year-over-year counterparts. The strongest hope that this could be a false alarm—and as always, I do hope I’m wrong—is that the current clip could be the last gasp of the fourth wave, not the introduction of the next one. Over the summer, cases blossomed across both the South and Upper Northwest, often leading to infections and mortalities that met or outstripped January’s catastrophic figures. Every state that’s currently experiencing rising cases, meanwhile, is still posting figures below the record levels last winter—or, in the case of New Hampshire and Vermont, reached a new all-time high in the past week. The ever undulating COVID-19 Belt currently stretches from Maine to Minnesota and all the way to Arizona, while regions that posted record figures in August and September remain comparatively dormant. 2021 wasn’t supposed to look like this. When the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine first [rolled out in the U.S.](https://time.com/5921608/covid-19-vaccine-rollout-hospitals/) on Dec. 14, it promised a foreseeable end to what already felt like eternal torpor. That hope predated the rise of the Delta variant, but it was also predicated on two assumptions: that a supermajority of adults would get vaccinated as soon as possible, and that we could endure a shuttered existence just long enough for that to happen. The fast mutation of the novel virus could not have been prevented, and vaccine hesitancy (and “[meh-sitance](https://time.com/6046880/covid-19-vaccine-slowdown/)”) was arguably inevitable. As for the reflexive advance and retreat of reopening, I would hazard a guess that the [May 13 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention edict](https://time.com/6048398/new-cdc-mask-guidance-indoors-outdoors/) that freed the fully vaccinated from wearing masks in many scenarios will not be looked upon kindly by the history books. Those books cannot be written until the U.S. and world kick the two-month cycle. This doesn’t mean total hermitage at a time when the economy is desperately in need of participation. It does mean that safety protocols will need to revert to those utilized in the earlier days of the pandemic—for as long as the data are anywhere nearly as bad as or worse than they were a year ago. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6117006/covid-19-fifth-wave/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6117006/covid-19-fifth-wave/"},"headline":"Is a Fifth Wave Coming? 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