US sees biggest COVID-19 wave in two years

And before it rose again to 8.82 on August 10, it was just 1.36 three months ago. However, the CDC says that this data is not complete and may change.

Photo: CNN

"Currently, COVID-19 activity in wastewater is very high nationwide, with the highest levels in the western United States," Dr. Jonathan Yoder, deputy director of the CDC's wastewater surveillance program, wrote in an email. "This year, the COVID-19 wave arrived earlier than last year, typically occurring in late August or early September."

According to the CDC’s COVID-19 statistics, emergency room visits, hospitalizations, and deaths are rising. As of the end of July, about four out of every 100,000 people in an area were hospitalized with the disease, compared to just one in May.

The CDC's wastewater data closely matches the readings they see on the national WastewaterSCAN network.

“That’s the highest increase we’ve seen in the summer wave,” said Dr. Marlene Wolfe of Emory University and program director of WastewaterSCAN. “We’re now detecting SARS-CoV-2 in 100% of samples across the United States.”

“Despite the changes in the number of monitoring sites, it is notable that current levels are much higher than peak readings in previous summers, but still below the average concentrations in the winters of 2023, 2022, or 2021,” said Dr. Alexandria Boehm, professor of the environment at Stanford University.

US health authorities are no longer tracking the coronavirus as closely as they did during the pandemic, and no longer provide daily or weekly estimates of new cases. Instead, the country relies heavily on wastewater levels to track case numbers.

The amount of virus in wastewater doesn’t correlate perfectly with the number of cases, Wolfe said. That’s because of factors like how much water is flowing through the system when the sample is taken, or how much virus is being shed with a particular variant. Still, sampling has shown a strong relationship between the number of people infected and the amount of virus in local wastewater.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not yet approved new COVID-19 vaccine enhancements, but experts say they've heard that the Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax shots will be ready in the coming weeks.

Ha Trang (according to CNN)

Source: https://www.congluan.vn/my-chung-kien-lan-song-covid-19-lon-nhat-trong-hai-nam-post308161.html