NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) - There are a variety of opinions as to what the COVID-19 pandemic will do as the weather gets warmer.

Will it slowly dissipate the way the flu usually does? Some coronaviruses - not this one - cause common colds, and those corona colds, while less frequent, don't really go away in the summer.

The fear is that even if this coronavirus behaves like the flu and causes fewer cases, it might also act like the flu and come roaring back in the fall.

That's precisely the fear of the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Robert Redfield, who told the Washington Post yesterday: "There's a possibility that the assault of the virus on our nation next winter will actually be even more difficult than the one we just went through."

In other words, if a flu epidemic and COVID-19 epidemic strike at the same time, the nation's health system could be even more overwhelmed than it was this time around.

There are, however, reasons to believe that even if the flu and corona do overlap in the fall, we should be better prepared then.

For one thing, healthcare workers will know more about what to expect and hospital supplies of personal protective equipment, ventilators and other equipment should be replenished.

While the early symptoms of the flu and COVID-19 are very similar, hospital epidemiologist Dr. Jennifer Lighter at the NYU Langone Health System says better testing in the fall will help.

"Diagnosis will be much easier than it was six weeks ago when you were basing diagnosis on a clinical basis of the patients' signs and symptoms," she said.

Lighter told CBS2 that by the fall, we should also be much better at treating the coronavirus.

"Hopefully with the clinical trials that are ongoing we'll be able to produce some evidence that the treatments we are currently using may be effective," she said.

One more note of optimism: It looks like many millions of Americans will have been infected and recovered from COVID-19 by the fall and they will very possibly have at least some immunity to the virus, which should ease the severity of any second wave of corona infections, as will getting the flu shot.

For the top questions people have been asking about the coronavirus, visit cbsnewyork.com/max, and go to facebook.com/cbsnewyork to submit your question.