COVID-19 cases are rising in the United States, but disease experts are They say this is no cause for alarm.
That’s because the virus is weakening over time. Americans also have a lot of residual immunity from previous COVID infections and vaccinations., which is reducing the impact of what is still a fast-spreading virus.
The Current dominant subvariants are “highly contagious”but “not more severe,” said William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University. While the level of COVID traces found in wastewater — an indicator of infections — indicates that some parts of the U.S. are surpassing last summer’s surge, hospitalizations remain low.
“Our population immunity is very high,” Schaffner said. There are still risks for the elderly and some other groups, but the Most healthy people are fairly protected from their own prior exposure to the disease or from vaccines, he said.
According to Schaffner, this milder COVID may be a nature’s design and point out where the virus is headedPrevious coronaviruses have gone from causing severe symptoms and high mortality rates to causing common colds in the majority of the population, he said.
“COVID-19 wants to spread, and killing people is a disadvantage because it stops the spread,” said Stanley Plotkin, professor emeritus of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania and a consultant to vaccine makers. “The virus is doing what it likes to do, which is infect as many people as possible.”
Plotkin said he hopes that COVID is more like rhinoviruses, that cause the common cold. It will come and go and cause flare-ups, but it won’t be as dangerous, he said.
The rates of weekly hospitalizations for COVID were hovering around 2 cases per 100,000 people in late June, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The rate has risen but is still well below the winter peak of 7.7 per 100,000 people in late December 2023.
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These milder Omicron subvariants began spreading in April and now account for more than 60 percent of cases nationwide, according to the CDC. While numerous variants have been identified since the beginning of COVID, omicron, which arrived in 2021, and its descendants have become the dominant version.
This milder version of COVID is likely to make it harder to convince people to get vaccinated, which doesn’t bode well for vaccine manufacturers. vaccines like PfizerAbout a quarter of adults have received the updated vaccine released in September.
A possible solution is combining the COVID vaccine with the flu vaccine, with nearly half of Americans getting one. Another strategy that has been suggested is to roll out a new vaccine before September, when they have traditionally been introduced, to boost demand.
COVID-19 testing became more difficult after the United States ended its lockdown on May 1. obligation of hospitals to report data. Cities and states are increasingly testing wastewater to help control COVID-19.
According to the CDC, that data shows a recent surge that began about two months ago, especially in the western United States. The surge in cases includes Xavier Becerra, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, who tested positive on Tuesday, HHS said.
This surge follows a similar pattern to COVID cases peaking during summer and winter, and this surge appears less severe, Jefferies analyst Akash Tewari wrote in a recent research note. “Early signals seem to suggest a milder season.”