United States: Just when the holiday and traveling season began, COVID-19 reportedly came back across the country, according to reports from experts.
More about the news
However, during winter, the COVID surge began much later this year, and there are some voices speaking all about the new ‘silent’ wave growing during the holiday time.
This is why it is referred to as the “silent” wave: few realize that COVID has returned this winter from a very low level this fall, according to the latest weekly results of US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tests.
This year's winter COVID wave is off to a later start than usual, and health experts are warning about a potential "silent" surge in transmission over the holiday season.https://t.co/dqhQnkRh9A
— News Talk 830 WCCO (@wccoradio) December 27, 2024
People may not realize their risk of infection is higher and don’t get tested if they have mild symptoms. Therefore, they will go to holiday parties, travel, etc., and spread the virus.
What more has the data revealed?
According to Michael Hoerger, Ph.D., associate professor at Tulane University School of Medicine and public health expert on tracking COVID-19 trends, “There’s a good chance that a lot of people are going to get sick in the next couple of weeks and be unaware of it. Most people are not tracking CDC data, and so their only way of knowing whether we’re in a wave is if they’ve gotten sick,” TODAY.com reported.
USA Today: ''A winter wave' of COVID could be coming as America gathers for the holidays'
— Billy Hanlon (@bhanlon15) December 26, 2024
'Just as everyone prepares to gather with family and friends for holiday celebrations, the U.S. CDC says COVID could be on the rise, based on wastewater data'https://t.co/m3t9Fv4w40
However, the data are still insufficient to observe that the US has a large COVID surge, yet Hoerger points out that the country continues to be in its 10th COVID wave since the onset of the pandemic.
Levels of COVID-19 spread
While present in wastewater now, the COVID-19 virus was at somewhat lower levels than at this time last winter. However, there has been a clear increase in the past two weeks, as the data from the CDC shows.
And they will probably go on rising, experts believe.
“This is a very risky time in terms of lots of people interacting indoors, so we don’t really know how quickly transmission can pick up,” Hoerger added.
As per Dr. Jonathan Yoder, deputy director of the CDC Division of Infectious Disease Readiness and Innovation, “As of Friday, December 20, COVID-19 levels in wastewater are moderate nationally, as TODAY.com reported.
This year's winter COVID-19 wave is off to a late start, and experts expect cases to keep rising. Here's what to know this holiday season.https://t.co/5XpUKIJUEM
— NBC4 Washington (@nbcwashington) December 25, 2024
The CDC no longer reports the number of COVID cases in the US each day. Instead, they use wastewater surveys, test positivity, and emergency department visit data to estimate the transmissibility of COVID in the US.
The test positivity for COVID is at 5.6 percent, or an increase of 0.5 percent from the week before, according to the CDC.
COVID-associated emergency department encounters and deaths are also climbing at an extremely marginal rate.
According to Hoerger, the director of the Pandemic Mitigation Collective, which employs the COVID-19 forecasting model, the estimate as of December 16 is that one person in 64 (1.6 percent) of the population are actively infectious in the US, and there are about 750 thousand new everyday positive tests, and these figures are increasing.
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