TUESDAY, June 25, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- As scorching summer temperatures drive Americans indoors and millions travel for vacations and family gatherings, COVID infections are again climbing, U.S. health officials warned Monday.
In evidence that suggests a COVID summer wave is underway, case counts are most likely increasing in 39 states and aren’t declining anywhere in the country, new data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows.
While the CDC no longer tracks COVID cases, it still estimates spread of the virus using data on emergency department visits. Both COVID deaths and ED visits have risen in the last week, while hospitalizations climbed 25% from May 26 to June 1, according to the latest CDC data . “It looks like the summer wave is starting to begin,” Dr.
Thomas Russo , chief of infectious diseases at the University at Buffalo Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, told NBC News . Several new COVID variants are likely contributing to the summer spike in cases, Dr. Dan Barouch , director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, told NBC News.
“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 added. All three variants are descendants of JN.
1, the version of the coronavirus that dominated this winter. KP..
