Hey, everyone, Dr. Z, if you're watching the news these days, you're in a bunker right

now, panic, torting PPE and toilet paper and feeling like the world is ending because

cases are skyrocketing.

You see it all over the news.

We're breaking records every single day for a number of coronavirus cases, certain states

like Utah, El Paso, Texas, the hospitals are reaching capacity.

And that can feel terrifying.

None of this was actually particularly surprising because we know the dynamics of this virus

much better now.

It spreads more rapidly in cold scenarios because people come indoors and they're sharing

poorly ventilated space and the virus is more stable at cold temperatures.

So it can live on surfaces longer, it can live on the air longer.

And so for all those reasons, we're seeing a much predicted surge in the winter.

Now, why did we have cases in the summer, particularly in the sunbelt?

I think it still goes with this cold theory in warm areas like the Southwest, the West,

people go indoors when it's hot.

And there's air conditioning, low humidity, crowded circumstances, big boom in cases.

But what we're seeing now is hospitalizations are rising to levels that are starting to

exceed what we saw in the very early part of this, where the northeast was most affected

in that cold time in like January, February, March, April.

Again, fits this theory of how the virus spreads.

But what we're seeing now is a little different.

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