current figures are the lowest in 4 years. Additionally, tracking requirements will soon be out of date. Thus, COVID-19 as a major issue might be reduced to an afterthought in the country’s consciousness.
It was my milestone that just passed by without any pomp or noise.
After being infected by the coronavirus for about four years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have now confirmed the lowest number of weekly hospital admissions since the outbreak started. There were no flowers or bright public statements. The vast majority of the Americans knew nothing about it. Depending on the Americans themselves, it may be their way of living.
The CDC began releasing a weekly report for COVID-19 hospitalization in August 2020, implying that the data only cover part of the pandemic. Nevertheless, it should be considered an important development and may be correct as viral activity rates in wastewater have decreased and the fatalities are also down.
“’ The really good news is that we are consistently registering the lowest numbers of hospitalizations and deaths due to COVID-19 we have had at any point since the pandemic began,’ says Dr. Michael Osterholm, a renowned infectious disease expert from the University of Minnesota.”
CDC statistics indicate 5600+ new hospital admissions with COVID-19 that were reported during the week ending on April 20. That peaks at over 150,000 new, weekly hospitalizations during January 2022 The peak compared to the current level of less than 5,000.
“Especially if people as a community will constantly continue to be mindful of those who are at greatest risk of severe illness and death from COVID, here are some of the positive signs in the data that give this summer more hope rather than constant apprehension of the data,” says Dr. Keri Althoff of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Notably, it could be one of the last weeks of full COVID-19 hospital admissions data as the requirement for hospitals to report the figures, as well as capacity and occupancy, ended this week.
“These hospitals are no longer required to report certain COVID-19 and acute respiratory illness-related data to HHS through CDC’s National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN), but they may do so voluntarily,” a CDC spokesperson said in a statement to U.S. News.
Althoff says it bothers her to see the decrease in data, but she acknowledges that the move reduces reporting burdens on hospitals.
“I’m an epidemiologist,” Althoff says. “I would love to see all this data. So does it bother me? Of course, it does. That being said, I think we also have to recognize that this is a balance and collecting and submitting those data – that is not just done by thin air. That is done by people.”
Many in the U.S. initially gauged the pandemic through the number of new infections. That shifted as hospitalization and death data became more reliable and states were no longer required to report infection numbers to the CDC. So where does the focus shift now?
“Wastewater data is extremely important and valuable to understanding where the virus infects humans across our country,” Althoff says.
Wastewater viral activity, which can help track both symptomatic and asymptomatic infections, is currently considered “minimal” on the national level, according to the CDC.
The change in hospitalization reporting is just the latest hit to a dwindling pool of COVID-19 data that highlights much of the country’s overall shift in thinking about the coronavirus.
A Pew Research Center survey published in March found that about 27% of U.S. adults were somewhat or very concerned about getting a serious case of COVID-19 that requires hospitalization. While that’s down dramatically from the start of the pandemic, it represents a considerable amount of Americans who are still concerned about COVID-19.
Despite those concerns, uptake of the latest COVID-19 vaccine has been limited, with less than 23% of adults rolling up their sleeves for it, according to CDC data. That’s considerably less than the uptake for the flu shot, which was 48% for adults.
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As with many trends that emerged during the pandemic, the gap is more pronounced when broken down by political parties. According to the survey, Republicans were more than twice as likely to report getting the flu shot as they were for the updated COVID-19 shot. Democrats showed a “more modest” difference between uptake of the two shots, according to the survey.
Summer COVID-19 Forecast
During vacation, it is like a moveable bet COVID-19-wise. The latter seems to not bother the former since among some, the virus has already formed waves of uncertainties.
Hence, what exactly may the United States witness from not only COVID-19 but also stream entertainment this summer?
Through their ensemble forecasts, the CDC projects that the present modification of hospitalizations will likely continue the downward trend shortly.
It might be hard just to predict where coronavirus disease will lead to because it is an epidemic that occurs for one season only and not others like the flu.
“Saying this may be called seasonal would be to assume it has appeared in all four seasons, but the confirmation of this is unknown,” Osterholm states.
The situation can also change, as a new variant of the disease, which doctors mistaken for carries illness might emerge.
“The likelihood of the trend staying though, however, would decrease as long as we do not see the emergence of a variant that is considerably more infectious and has the propensity to elude our immune protection,” Osterholm explains.
A Variant on the Rise
Another COVID-19 strain is quietly starting to take over in the U.S.
After months on top, JN.1’s prevalence in the U.S. is now second to one of its descendants, KP.2.
KP.2 was responsible for 1 in 4 new COVID-19 infections in the CDC’s latest estimates. The World Health Organization recently cited the strain in its recommendation to change COVID-19 vaccines to combat JN.1.
It’s unclear if the new strain will eventually lead to an increase in COVID-19 cases, but it’s always a possibility with a quickly rising variant.
“I think this is one where we’re kind of at a point of necessary humility, and acknowledging that we don’t know what it means, but, surely at this point, there is no evidence that it’s increasing the disease burden in our communities,” Osterholm says.
