Summer Covid-19 wave picks up the pace
Sharp increase seen in wastewater concentration in Midwest
Respiratory viruses
The summer Covid-19 wave has intensified, based on recent data from Biobot. The Midwestern region saw a sharp increase in viral concentration in wastewater, returning to levels not seen since February. Parts of Kansas, Iowa, and Missouri are particularly affected. However, hospitalization metrics remain low in those states.
I remain more concerned about the South, where nearly 2% of visits to the ER are for Covid-19, up from a recent low of less than 0.5%. Florida, in particular, has an elevated wastewater concentration and increasing hospital metrics, including ER visits for Covid-19 and hospital admissions.
On the bright side, nationwide hospital admissions are still substantially lower than they were this time last year, which I find encouraging. But there is one major caveat: the number of hospitals submitting data may have changed from then to now. As in previous years, the most affected age group is people aged 70 and older. If you are an older adult or if you are immunocompromised, it’s a good idea to take extra precautions.
A new Covid-19 booster is expected to become available next month; I think it will be a good match to current variants. The flu vaccine will also become available soon, but I recommend waiting until later in the season to get that one.
In other news, cold-causing viruses like rhinovirus and the seasonal coronaviruses are going around, so expect some stuffy noses as school starts. Everything else looks good. RSV and influenza remain low, as expected this time of year. Winter respiratory virus season doesn’t usually pick up until October at the earliest, so I hope we don’t add those to the mix for several more months.
Food recalls
The following foods are being recalled because they are contaminated. Please check your cupboards and throw out any of these items:
Soft Serve on the Go ice cream cups (more info)
Certain ready-to-eat salads and wraps in Minnesota and Wisconsin (more info)
If you have food allergies, you may wish to review these FDA safety alerts for foods with undeclared allergens.
If you want to know more about what to expect for the season ahead, I shared a winter outlook last week. In short, I think we will have another tough winter, but there is reason to hope that it won’t be quite as bad as last year.
How can one who is elderly or immunocompromised "take extra precautions" when no one around us is doing anything at all to mitigate respiratory disease spread? I can certainly avoid bars, restaurants, movie theaters. But I am likely to be exposed in medical appointments since no one in medical offices is even masking anymore and there is no evidence of air filtration. I have to go for a MOHS procedure on my chin soon and obviously I cannot mask. I will be exposed to the air that all people who have been in that office have been exhaling all day. I get that it is not possible to get everyone to mask everywhere anymore, but dropping mask mandates in medical offices results in negligent exposure of vulnerable people to a deadly or disabling virus. With 11% of those who have had Covid now have Long Covid, and one quarter of those disabled from being able to work or do fun activities, this is serious. It is dismaying to have most discussions of an impending surge only dealing with the effect on hospitals and on deaths with no thoughts about how many of the people who are going to get Covid might end up disabled. It's not dying that is scary, it's being disabled!
My wife and I sre putting on our N95s again and using hand sanitizer. It feels like 2021 again. I don't care about the stares, I just hope we don't have to deal with the open hostility we had to deal with back in the early years when somehow things got politicized