This week in outbreaks: July 28 edition
An update on the summer wave
This week marks the one year anniversary of Force of Infection! In the last year, I’ve published 60 newsletters, gained over 17,000 subscribers, and heard from many awesome readers. Thank you for your support. Here’s to another year.
I’m still seeing signs of a summer Covid-19 wave. Wastewater concentration is up again this week, now in all four regions of the country. The Northeast and Southern regions continue to be most affected, following by the West and Midwest.
Compared to previous summers, wastewater concentration is almost exactly tied with this point during the 2021-2022 season, which is the year we had a summer Delta wave.
This year, the variant mix is predominantly XBB sublineages, which are the same Omicron variants that have been circulating for a while now. The fall booster is formulated to cover the XBB.1.5 variant, so I’m hopeful that it’s a good match.
Hospitalization indicators are increasing as well. The number of people admitted to the hospital with Covid-19 rose for the first time in months last week, and the proportion of emergency department visits that are diagnosed as COVID-19 is also increasing. Test positivity is now at 7.6%, up from a recent low of 4.1%.
As I’ve been saying for the last few weeks, I do think this is the beginning of a summer wave. Looking ahead, the next Covid-19 booster is expected to become available in mid to late September. Here’s a reminder of the latest recommendations (direct from the CDC website; my annotations in square brackets)
Everyone aged 6 years and older should get 1 updated Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to be up to date. [This is the booster than became available last fall.]
People aged 65 years and older may get a 2nd dose of updated Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. [This one became available this spring, only available to certain groups at higher risk of severe illness.]
People who are moderately or severely immunocompromised may get additional doses of updated Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. [Two months between doses, minimum.]
Children aged 6 months–5 years may need multiple doses of COVID-19 vaccine to be up to date, including at least 1 dose of updated Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, depending on the number of doses they’ve previously received and their age.
Food recalls
The following foods are being recalled because they are contaminated. Please check your cupboards and throw out any of these items:
There is an outbreak of salmonella, tentatively linked to 80% lean ground beef purchased from ShopRite locations in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York (more info)
Cooperstown Cheese sold in New York under various labels (more info)
Sambhar Masala and Garam Masala spices from Everest Food Products Private Limited (more info)
If you have food allergies, you may wish to review these FDA safety alerts for foods with undeclared allergens.
Any thoughts on the efficacy of Novavax as a booster in the fall, if it's available? Thanks!
It is good to have you reporting on what little covid data we have left. ER info is helpful. I don’t see anyone else writing on that. Hope we don’t loose wastewater data. I just read that someone just published an algorithm correlating covid cases to wastewater data. I hope it pans out. I hate flying in the dark like this. So unnecessary in this day and age. But useful for those trying to normalize the pandemic. No data, no pandemic.