<
https://www.wired.com/story/theres-a-huge-covid-surge-right-now-you-probably-didnt-notice/>
"Seemingly everyone has come down with at least one bout of illness this
winter: sniffles that theoretically pass as “just some bug” if you don’t test
for Covid.
But there’s a solid chance, with or without a test, that those sniffles were
Covid after all. We’re in the midst of the largest global surge in daily Covid
infections since Omicron, with nearly 2 million new infections per day
estimated in the US alone. Odds are, you barely noticed.
The massive rise in cases is being driven by coronavirus variant JN.1, which
emerged in September and quickly became the dominant strain. But
hospitalization rates are generally lower than they were this time last year
(90 admissions per million people in the US, roughly 65 percent the size of
last year’s spike). “It’s really encouraging that we don’t have a big parallel
spike of hospitalizations,” says Eric Topol, professor of molecular medicine at
the Scripps Research Translational Institute.
But infection rates haven’t peaked yet, and we can expect hospitalizations and
deaths to rise over the next few weeks. “That’s really troubling for a variant
that’s rapidly taking over,” says Mark Cameron, an infectious disease
researcher at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine—and especially
worrying during the winter flu season.
These numbers are rough estimates. Accurately tracking Covid infections is
trickier than ever, which is partly why the current wave has gone under the
radar. Testing and tracing infrastructure has been all but dismantled in the
US, so researchers have turned to our sewage as a proxy. Wastewater
surveillance data is collected locally from regions accounting for roughly 40
percent of the US population. This paints a decent picture of Covid trends, but
without the CDC tracking cases and deaths like they used to, it’s hard to tell
what’s going on. “Rosier numbers don’t necessarily reflect a better season than
last year,” Cameron says.
The timing couldn’t have been worse. With RSV and flu already making their
seasonal rounds, lots of Covid infections will arrive right on the heels of
another virus. On December 14, the CDC posted its first Covid-related health
alert in a year, urging health care providers to administer flu, Covid, and RSV
vaccines to prevent severe illness that could overburden hospitals. Some health
care facilities are bringing back mask requirements in light of the respiratory
triple-whammy. “If you pick up the flu, get RSV two weeks later, and then are
unlucky enough to get Covid, your immune system takes a beating,” Cameron says.
“Secondary infections with different agents make health outcomes worse and
worse.”
We’ve been living with these circulating seasonal respiratory viruses for
decades, and they’ve only changed slightly. But Covid is still evolving
rapidly, and is capable of causing trouble beyond cold and flu season—twice a
year, but not yet predictably. Despite getting circumstantially lumped in with
other winter viruses, JN.1 is driving major waves in both hemispheres,
including southern regions in the middle of summer. “Covid is on its own
schedule,” says Cameron."
Via Violet Blue’s
Pandemic Roundup: January 11, 2024
https://www.patreon.com/posts/pandemic-roundup-96291169
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
