{"id":89054,"date":"2023-08-03T20:39:32","date_gmt":"2023-08-03T20:39:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2023\/08\/03\/covids-summer-wave-is-rising-again\/"},"modified":"2023-08-03T20:39:32","modified_gmt":"2023-08-03T20:39:32","slug":"covids-summer-wave-is-rising-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2023\/08\/03\/covids-summer-wave-is-rising-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Covid&#8217;s Summer Wave Is Rising\u2014Again"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paywall\">At this point, it\u2019s too early to say there\u2019s a massive wave of infections building\u2014but the hospitalization data is enough to pique the attention of epidemiologists and public health experts. Although case and hospitalization numbers are still relatively low, the virus does kill hundreds of people in the US each week. And as of early 2023, it had left an estimated one in 10 survivors fighting long Covid, which can include persistent health issues like breathlessness and brain fog.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">There could be a few reasons for the current uptick in cases, waning immunity among them. Just around 17 percent of the US population has received bivalent vaccines, which became widely available in the fall of 2022 and are meant to offer better protection against Omicron variants. With lower case numbers over the past few months and many people not receiving a booster shot in 2023, immunity from vaccinations and prior infections could be decreasing, making more people susceptible to the virus, says Sam Scarpino, director of AI and life sciences at the Institute for Experiential AI at Northeastern University.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Experts guessed that Covid-19 would become seasonal, peaking in the fall and winter like the flu and the common cold, but other factors have kept the virus around in warmer months. \u201cIt\u2019s true that you have cyclical patterns for most of these respiratory diseases,\u201d Scarpino says. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s really well understood what drives those.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">There could be some particular factors at play this year. Much of the US is enduring a suffocating summer. Wildfire smoke from Canada has engulfed the East Coast and Midwest, and exposure to the particulate pollution that comes with the smoke may weaken the immune system. Those were the findings of a 2021 study: In 2020, parts of California, Oregon, and Washington that experienced wildfire smoke saw excess Covid-19 cases and deaths. Meanwhile, dangerously high temperatures are keeping people indoors in the southern part of the US, and as a respiratory virus, SARS-CoV-2 spreads most easily indoors. People also traveled at record rates during the summer\u2019s early months, which meant more opportunities for Covid to spread. But it\u2019s not yet clear whether one, all, or none of these factors may be driving infections.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Genomic sequencing from the CDC shows that, as of June, offshoots of the Omicron variant are responsible for all of Covid-19 cases in the US. \u201cOn one hand, this is a good sign,\u201d says Jetelina. \u201cWe can hopefully predict where SARS-CoV-2 is going.\u201d That\u2019s helpful for formulating updated coronavirus vaccinations. But it\u2019s not certain that the virus\u2019s evolution will continue down this Omicron path. In May, experts estimated the possibility of a highly mutated variant of concern arising during the next two years at about 20 percent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">In June, the US Food and Drug Administration recommended the development of an updated Covid-19 shot, preferring a formula that would target the XBB.1.5 Omicron variant. The FDA may authorize such a shot by the end of the month. But it\u2019s hard to know whether people will be eager to get a fifth or sixth vaccine\u2014pandemic fatigue, distrust of public health officials, and an overall return to normal life left many unenthused about last year\u2019s booster and contributed to the low uptake rates. And while the US government previously bought doses directly and helped distribute them for free, the distribution of vaccines is now expected to move to the private sector.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Officials are unlikely to roll out wide-ranging restrictions on masking and social distancing\u2014and barring a threatening new subvariant or a massive peak in cases, people are unlikely to change their behaviors after living alongside the virus for more than three years. It\u2019s too soon to know whether the latest Covid-19 cases are a blip or a big wave. But as the dog days of summer linger, Covid is hanging around too.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At this point, it\u2019s too early to say there\u2019s a massive wave of infections building\u2014but the hospitalization data is enough to pique the attention of epidemiologists and public health experts. Although case and hospitalization numbers are still relatively low, the virus does kill hundreds of people in the US each week. And as of early [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-technology"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Covid&#039;s Summer Wave Is Rising\u2014Again - Ghanamma.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2023\/08\/03\/covids-summer-wave-is-rising-again\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Covid&#039;s Summer Wave Is Rising\u2014Again - Ghanamma.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"At this point, it\u2019s too early to say there\u2019s a massive wave of infections building\u2014but the hospitalization data is enough to pique the attention of epidemiologists and public health experts. Although case and hospitalization numbers are still relatively low, the virus does kill hundreds of people in the US each week. 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