United States: With the new wave of COVID-19 in the summer, there are tons of cases of reinfection due to new variants of COVID-19, which are referred to as FLiRT.
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Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, the UCSF infectious disease specialist, said that the said trend is more observable with offshoots of omicron and how Coronavirus then follows a rhythm of attacking every six months and mutating to counter immune developments.
He said, “Infections in the summer are now like clockwork, and so are reinfections,” while emphasizing the immunity gathered through previous infection or vaccination waning its effect over time.
Essentially, the extent of immunity within different population members differs and depends on previous exposure, previous immunizations, and medical conditions that vulnerable individuals may have.
Adults in their middle age are largely likely to get mild replay while worsening impacts occur with escalating severities with those in 65 years of age and above, those with an impaired immune system and preexisting diseases.
According to Chin-Hong, “The risk of long COVID increases cumulatively with reinfections because there are more chances for the immune response to go awry,” as the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Rise in ER visits due to COVID-19
COVID-19 emergency room occupations in California increased by 8.5 percent from the prior week. On the other hand, the coronavirus test positivity rate in the state increased to 6.4 percent, which is three times as much as at the beginning of May.
Although the number of people who arrange for laboratory COVID tests has significantly reduced, the trend of positive outcomes of those who tested remains as a key signal of infected residents in the community.
COVID-19 accounted for 1.3 percent of weekly deaths of Californians in the most recent mortality rate figure as of the latest data obtained from the California Department of Public Health, up from only 0.4 percent in mid-May.
SARS-CoV-2 wastewater data from around the San Francisco Bay Area reveal medium or high levels of the virus at all or most tested sites, running from San Francisco through Marin, Solano, Contra Costa, San Mateo, and Santa Clara counties, as the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
More about the FLiRT variants and vaccination
The FLiRT variants of the Coronavirus that were given their name by the location of the spike protein mutations — KP.3, KP.2, and KP.1. New cases are now over 50 percent, according to the current survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
This change hence led to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommending that the manufacturers of the fall vaccines shift their formulation to concentrate on the KP.2 lineage, as the company switched its recommendation barely one week from the previous week when the same company was the most dominating player identified as JN.1 variant.
California is among 34 states and territories where overall, COVID-19 indicators are trending up. The CDC’s COVID Data Tracker showed national trend at 5.4 percent and a 12.6 percent rise in COVID-19️ related emergency department presentation rate compared to the previous week. Nationally, trends in hospitalization and death rates don’t vary significantly.