of this pandemic is two phases , the two acute phase, current models suggest between six to eight weeks in the u.s., seeing what we seen in south africa and uk about this highly-transmissible variant and we can then talk about what metrics are important. the reason the surge is different is that these high number of cases, at least during this surge matter for two reasons, one is what dr. fauci just said when you have a huge number of cases in the community the virus finds people unvaccinated, finds people who are vulnerable and hence you have increased number of hospitalization. in some states. new jersey is reach the same peak of last winter despite the numbers we ve seen because there s so much more virus finding people who are unvaccinated who are vulnerable, the other reason the surge and cases matter for this short period of time is any time you have an infectious disease that s millions of cases in a