NBC News put out this reporting last week that Covid cases are on the rise again this summer, only I couldn’t cover it until now because **checks notes** oh yeah, I’ve been holed up in bed with Covid! And it’s not only me (however much it feels like it). Cases are up in 39 states in the US, with California in particular showing a bump in positive Covid tests from 3% to 7.5% in the last month (and those stats are just for documented cases). One bit of good news? Though there’s a new crop of variants that disease experts are tracking, the data suggests that overall the cases are milder than we’ve seen from Covids past. Here are the important bits on the trends and variants popping up this summer, and the best ways to prepare:
Summer wave: The CDC no longer tracks Covid cases, but it estimates transmission based on emergency department visits. Both Covid deaths and ED visits have risen in the last week. Hospitalizations also climbed 25% from May 26 to June 1, the latest data available. … “It looks like the summer wave is starting to begin,” said Dr. Thomas Russo, chief of infectious diseases at the University at Buffalo Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. Covid infections have historically spiked over the summer, in part because of an increase in travel and people congregating indoors, where it’s cooler. This year appears to be no exception, though disease experts expect this season’s wave to be milder in terms of severe disease.
Flirting with disaster: Several variants are likely to be contributing to the nationwide trend, said Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. “We’re seeing the start of an uptick of infections that is coincident with new variants that are developing: KP.2 and KP.3 and LB.1. It does appear that those variants do have an advantage over the prior ones,” he said. … KP.2 became the dominant variant in the U.S. last month, and then KP.3 took over in early June. Along with a third variant that shares the same key mutations, KP.1.1, the group accounts for around 63% of Covid infections in the U.S. Some scientists collectively refer to the variants as “FLiRT” — a reference to their amino acid changes.
New kid on the block: LB.1 accounts for another 17.5% of Covid infections. Experts said its rapid growth indicates that it’s likely to become dominant soon, though scientists still want to study it more closely. “It’s sort of the newest kid on the block,” Barouch said. “There’s not much known about it.” A preprint paper released this month, which hasn’t been peer-reviewed, suggests that LB.1 is more infectious than the “FLiRT: variants and could be better at evading protection from vaccines or previous infections. “Assuming that preliminary data is true, that it’s more immune-evasive and that it’s more infectious than KP.2 and KP.3, that’s a winning formula to infect more people,” Russo said.
What you can do: Russo recommended that people who are the most vulnerable to infection — those who are older or immunocompromised or engage in riskier activities, such as attending large parties or gatherings — consider getting the latest Covid vaccine now if they haven’t already. He added that a monoclonal antibody drug called Pemgarda has been available since April for immunocompromised people. The antiviral medication Paxlovid should also help reduce the likelihood of hospitalization or death. But most young, healthy people can hold out for the updated Covid vaccines expected to arrive this fall, experts said. The Food and Drug Administration advised vaccine manufacturers this month to target the KP.2 variant.
Get vaccinated, y’all! I usually double up and get my flu shot and Covid booster at the same appointment shortly after they roll them out in the fall. And this was my first dance with ‘rona, so I credit that to staying on top of my boosters and consider myself very lucky. Main symptoms have been a deep, persistent cough, and the hugely distracting and unpleasant metallic taste in my mouth from taking Paxlovid. It’s definitely been worse than the colds I typically get, but at no point did I feel things were so severe that I should go to the hospital. So again, thank you to the scientific community for giving us vaccines and medicines to save our lives. (And bless their hearts for being dorks; the explanation for the “FLiRT” nickname cracked me up.)
As for avoiding large parties and gatherings… excuse me, but I’m a pro. I was livin’ the social distancing life long before it was being preached, thankyouverymuch. I will have to go back to the office though, as my boss did not hesitate to remind me that the CDC dropped the five-day isolation requirement. The guidelines stipulate that you just need to be 24 hours free of fever without having taken fever-reducing medication. Of course, fever was never one of my symptoms, but I’m used to being an outlier.
Photos credit: Marcus Aurelius, Mediocre Memories and Wendy Wei on Pexels