New variant of covid spreads through the US amid a spike in cases

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For the fourth consecutive summer, Covid-19 is on the rise , although this year's heat wave appears more moderate than those during the emergency period of the pandemic.

Covid-19 indicators in terms of hospital admissions, emergency room consultations, positive test results and wastewater levels have increased in the last month, without a clear rebound yet in sight, according to the data. monitoring from the US Ce Phone Number List nters for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). From June 10 to July 29, positive cases went from 4.1% to 8.9%. For reference, the most recent winter wave had a testing positivity rate of 10.6% as of December 31, 2022.

Increase in coronavirus cases during summer wave
Ars Technica

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On the optimistic side, however, weekly virus hospital admissions and deaths in the United States remain at their lowest points since the start of the pandemic. For now, deaths do not indicate an increase, although there are delays in reporting information. New hospitalizations rise only slightly, with an increase of about 8,000 admissions in the week of July 22, compared to about 6,300 in the week of June 24.

Death counts from the most recent weeks with available data put numbers between 500 and 400 cases. And the CDC data no longer shows excess deaths, that is, a number above the expected reference levels. That is, the weekly number of deaths in the United States from all causes currently coincides with the number of deaths expected before the pandemic.

This seemingly milder wave is likely due to a combination of factors, such as immunity from vaccines and previous infections and the fact that many people vulnerable to the virus died in previous waves. The cumulative number of fatalities from the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States amounts to more than 1.1 million.

Still, the virus is surging again this summer, raising the question of whether the summer waves will be a fixed seasonal cycle. Many health experts consider SARS-CoV-2 to be predominantly a cold-weather virus, much like other respiratory germs, such as the common cold and flu, that thrive and spike in the fall and winter. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), for example, has developed its Covid-19 vaccine booster plans based on those used for annual flu vaccines.

But the seasonality of SARS-CoV-2 remains unclear, and researchers don't know exactly what causes the summer waves, which typically begin in the southern United States. One of the main hypotheses is that the spikes coincide with vacations, trips and meetings of the season.



The new coronavirus variant: EG.5.1
Another potential driver of the waves is new emerging variants. Currently, a new omicron subvariant , EG.5 , nicknamed “Eris,” which is related to XBB.1.9.2, is gaining strength in the United States, the United Kingdom, and some regions of Asia against the dominant variants until now, XBB.1.5 and XBB.1.16. However, surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 variants has decreased so much that the CDC only has enough data to estimate the prevalence of variants in three of the 10 health regions in the United States: the areas around California, New York and the southeast.

As a descendant of omicron, the most prevalent coronavirus strain in the world, the EG.5 subvariant is manifesting rapid spread, as recently reported by British health authorities, including the United Kingdom Health Security Agency, as it represents one of every seven new cases of covid in that country.

Based on information from The Washington Post and the opinion of virologist and researcher Stuart Turville, associate professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, although the EG.5 variant is more capable of “better circumventing the presence of antibodies” produced by vaccines, the symptoms are common to those of the coronavirus in general and although it is more contagious , it is not more aggressive ; “The impact on the human body is practically the same,” adds Professor K. Srinath Reddy of the Public Health Foundation of India.