August 16, 2023 – New weekly hospitalizations similar to COVID-19 have increased for the fourth week in a row.
Nationally, another 10,320 people were hospitalized in the week ending Aug. 5, up from 9,026 the week before, representing an increase of about 14 percent week-over-week, according to newly updated CDC figures. Hospitalizations peaked récord. de about 6,300 during the week in July.
The CDC stopped tracking the number of people infected with the virus earlier this year and is now relying on hospitalization data to assess the existing effect of COVID-19.
“We want us to still face much lower pandemic numbers than we’ve noticed,” John Brownstein, PhD, a professor of biomedical informatics at Harvard Medical School, told ABC News. “We want to step away to take a look at our “We enjoyed during the pandemic, to perceive that what we face now is far from being a crisis we have enjoyed in past waves. “
The main existing strain is still EG. 5, and ensures that it is neither more serious nor more contagious than other recent variants. The next review on whether EG. 5 continues to cause more people to have health problems will be done on Friday, when the CDC updates its variant estimates.
Brownstein told ABC News that one explanation for the fear of COVID indicator buildup, despite its overall low levels, is that a buildup occurred in the summer of 2021 with the harmful Delta variant.
“But each new variant that has appeared so far has had less effect on the population,” he said. “Now, is it imaginable that in the long term we will see a variant worthy of interest, a genuine concern?But overall, we saw a smoothing of the effect compared to the last variants that gave the impression.
SOURCES:
CDC: “Trends in COVID-19 Hospitalizations, Deaths, Emergency Room Visits, and Positivity in the U. S. U. S. by geographic area. “
ABC News: “Weekly COVID-related hospitalizations have increased as much as 14%, the numbers continue to decline than at other times in the pandemic. “
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