Another summer wave of COVID-19 would likely have started in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“After about six or seven months of steady declines, things are back,” Dr. Brendan Jackson, the CDC’s COVID-19 incident manager, told NPR.
The number of coronavirus detected in sewage, the percentage of other people who tested positive for the virus and the number of other people who sought COVID-19 care in the emergency room began to rise in early July, Jackson said.
“We’ve noticed the first signs disappear in the last few weeks, and this week, for the first time in a long time, we’re also noticing hospitalizations passing,” Jackson said. “This may be just the beginning of a late-summer wave. “. “
Hospitalizations rose 10% to 7109 in the week ending July 15, up from 6444 the week before, according to the most recent CDC data.
Increases vary across the country, with the virus peaking in the Southeast and peaking in the Midwest, Jackson says.
But in general, the numbers are very low, much less than in the last 3 summers.
“If you believe in the decline of ski slope-like instances (down, down, down over the last six months), we’re starting to see a little bit almost like a little ski jump down,” Jackson says.
Most hospitalizations are in the elderly. And COVID-19 deaths continue to decline; in fact, deaths have fallen to the lowest point since the CDC began tracking them, Jackson says. That could replace it in the coming weeks if hospitalizations continue to rise, but that’s not inevitable. Jackson says.
Therefore, the CDC has no plans to replace the recommendations with what most people do, such as encouraging large-scale masking again.
“For most people, those early symptoms don’t mean much,” he says.
Others agree.
“It’s like when meteorologists look at the shape of a typhoon offshore and they don’t know if it’s going to get propelled again or if it’s even going to turn toward the mainland, but they see that the situations are there and they’re watching closely,” he says. Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Even as infections, emergency room visits and hospitalizations continue to rise to produce some other wave, top experts don’t expect as severe a surge as past summers, largely due to people’s immunity to past infections and vaccinations.
“We’re in pretty smart shape in terms of immunity. The general population turns out to be in pretty smart shape,” says Dr. Brown. Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist at New York University and public fitness editor at KFF Health News.
Some are skeptical that the country will see a wave of any significance.
“Right now, I don’t see anything in the U. S. to support that we’re going to see a strong backlog of cases over the summer,” says Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. .
Right now, the CDC says other people continue to make individual decisions about whether to mask up when doing things like traveling or going to crowded places.
People most at risk of COVID-19 headaches, such as the elderly and those with limited physical fitness, will need to continue to protect themselves. That means making sure they’re up to date on their vaccinations, testing if they think they’re in poor physical condition and getting temporary treatment if they’re infected, doctors say.
“It’s a conversion situation. People are becoming more delicate every day. People are aging in riskier age groups. New people are being born,” says Jennifer Nuzzo, who directs the Pandemic Center at Brown University’s School of Public Health. The paintings of other people protective of this virus will continue as long as this virus continues to circulate on this planet, and I do not anticipate that it will disappear in the foreseeable future. “
Scientists and doctors, there will be another wave of COVID-19 this fall and winter that may be significant. As a result, the Food and Drug Administration is expected to approve a new vaccine in September to improve waning immunity and see everything that happens this winter pick up.
Some projections suggest that COVID-19 may be worse than a very bad flu season this year and next, meaning tens of thousands of people would die from COVID-19 year.
“It will continue to be among the 10 most sensible reasons for death, and I suspect COVID will remain among the 10 or 15 most sensible reasons for death in the United States,” says Justin Lessler, an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel. Hill, who is helping manage the COVID-19 situation modeling center.