Correction: This story first published Friday, April 10 should have stated that the term “incubation period” meant the time between when a person contracts the virus and the point when he or she first shows symptoms. For the coronavirus, the maximum incubation period is usually defined as two weeks.

The worst of the Rochester-area COVID-19 outbreak is at least several weeks away, Dr. Michael Mendoza said Thursday, and the return to normal life will not occur for a considerable time after that.

Reopening of businesses and a resumption of social and recreational activities would not occur before mid-summer, by Mendoza's estimate. School is almost certainly out until September.

But before any of that can even be contemplated, people in the Rochester region must weather the worst of the coronavirus pandemic.

"We're to some degree in the calm before the storm. When we look at the data … I think there’s a temptation to say 'Maybe we're doing all right.' My only caution is that until this is over, I hesitate very much to spike the football, so to speak," Mendoza said at a virtual news conference at midday Thursday.

"If we have a peak ... I would still predict that that would be at least three weeks off, two to three weeks off," he said.

The number of COVID-19 cases confirmed by testing, which stood at 680 on Thursday, has been growing at a slow but steady rate. The number of deaths, now 40, has been growing somewhat more quickly in recent days.

The growth in caseload and casualties will continue at least into May. If Rochester-area residents avoid back-sliding on social distancing, Mendoza said there is hope the caseload will plateau at a level that the local hospital network can handle.

"I will grant that there will be a lot of impatience when people think that this is in the rear-view mirror. Trust me, I’d like to go back to going out to the park and having dinner in restaurants all the same.

"But the reality is if we do that too quickly, we put ourselves in danger. We put our loved ones and our vulnerable seniors and others in danger. That’s the last thing we want to do. We're three to four weeks into this thing. There’s a lot of this that’s still yet to come."

Not done yet

Once the peak has been reached, Mendoza said, that won't spell the end of the outbreak.

"There is no science to this, unfortunately, other than to say that in our circles — myself and my counterparts across the state — we have always viewed six weeks, or two to three incubation periods ... as the period we need to wait before calling things all clear," he said.

By incubation period, he meant the period of time between when a person contracts the virus and the point when he or she first shows symptoms.

The number of cases presumably will drop during this period, and health officials would have an extended opportunity to detect the new cases that do appear and place those parties in quarantine.

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Once that interval has passed, then recovery can begin. If Mendoza's advice carries any weight, the recovery will be done very, very slowly.

"I think we have to be cautious. We have to be approaching this as though we don’t know what's around the corner," he said. "I would anticipate that we would not do anything quickly, we would not do anything without a lot of conversation."

The coronavirus won't be gone from the community, and it's likely that many people will have no immunity to it.

Cases will continue to pop up, Mendoza suggested, and it may be necessary to limit interaction — to phase in that return to normalcy — so that health officials can intercept those infected people and prevent them from spreading the virus further.

"If we decide we want to open up all the doors and the all the schools and all the businesses and restaurants all at once, that would not be a wise choice, because that will not allow us in the health department and acreo... to go back to the aggressive contact tracing and isolation-and-quarantine procedures that we had a couple of weeks ago," Mendoza said.

The worry is that a few new cases could turn into a few dozen more that could, if left unchecked, trigger a second surge of infection, hospitalization and death.

"We want to be very careful about how we return to normalcy. How we do that will determine whether we get that second spike," the health commissioner said.

Coronavirus testing hopefully be more robust and could be used to demonstrate it was safe for people to return to work.

It will, he granted, be a strange navigation through uncharted waters.

"I see us approaching life with a lot more caution. I see us questioning a lot of the conventions. You know, I had somebody say 'Are we going to be able to shake hands and hug one another again?'

"I have no idea. I sure hope so," Mendoza said."But the reality is those are questions we haven’t yet begun to entertain."

Contact watchdog reporter Steve Orr at sorr@democratandchronicle.com or at (585) 258-2386. Follow him on Twitter at @SOrr1. This coverage is only possible with support from our readers. If you don't already have a digital subscription, please sign up today.