By Caroline Kee
December 23, 2024
Source: TODAY
Photo / Image Source: Unsplash,
Wastewater levels of COVID-19 are lower than they were at this point last winter, but there has been a sharp uptick in the last two weeks, according to data from the CDC. And cases will likely continue to increase, experts say.
“As of Friday, Dec. 20, COVID-19 levels in wastewater are moderate nationally,” Dr. Jonathan Yoder, deputy director of the CDC Division of Infectious Disease Readiness and Innovation, tells TODAY.com. Wastewater data from the prior week was “low” nationally. Levels are highest in the Midwest.
“Nationally, COVID-19 levels in wastewater have been increasing through the month of December, following a period of low levels in October and November,” Yoder adds.
The CDC no longer tracks the total number of new COVID cases in the U.S., instead estimating transmission levels using wastewater surveillance, test positivity and emergency department visits.
COVID test positivity is at 5.6%, up 0.5% from the previous week, per CDC data. COVID-related emergency room visits and deaths are also increasing very slightly.
“The issue with this winter’s wave is it’s a lot different than previous ones," Hoerger explains. In past years, COVID has followed a similar pattern: Cases ramp up in November, increase steadily and peak around late December or early January.
“Normally people would have had a month or so of warning by now, seeing friends and family getting infected,” says Hoerger.
"Transmission was freakishly low for November, and so people are kind of lulled into a false sense of security," he adds.
COVID-19 levels are ticking up about a month later than usual, which puts the country into “uncharted territory," according to Hoerger.
“You can think of the start of the wave as kind of a silent transmission period where people aren’t really aware of it, and that’s coinciding with the start of holiday travel,” he explains.
Hoerger, who is the director of the Pandemic Mitigation Collective, which uses the COVID-19 forecasting model, projects that as of Dec. 16, one in 64 (1.6%) people are actively infectious in the U.S., and there are about 750,000 new daily infections, and these are rising.
This COVID-19 wave is coming on late and “out of nowhere,” he wrote on X.
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