The World Health Organization (WHO) is warning that the next spike in Covid cases could be just around the corner, just as the world is starting to recover from the Omicron-driven winter spike in Covid in the past.
Covid cases in the U.S. are declining at a slow pace, and data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warns that sewage data from certain parts of the country indicate a rise in cases may be just around the corner.
Last week, the WHO reported that the number of Covid cases in the world increased by eight percent to 11 million. The biggest jump was recorded in the Western Pacific region, where the number of cases increased by 25 percent every week. Africa experienced a 14 percent jump, while Europe saw a 2 percent increase.
“This increase comes despite a reduction in testing in some countries, which means that the cases we are seeing are just the tip of the iceberg,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a briefing, warning that cases will rise even more. in the coming weeks.
Global cases of COVID-19 are starting to rise again after falling sharply in recent weeks after the Omicron option peaked. The WHO reports that the number of Covid cases in the world rose by 8% last week.
The “hidden” variant BA.2 Omicron (pink) currently accounts for about 23% of COVID-19 cases in the US, up from 11% last week and 6% a week earlier. The Omicron variant makes up every single case of succession in America.
Despite rising overseas, U.S. Covid cases are down 14% over the past week, with an average daily case count of 32,168, one of the lowest daily averages since the pandemic began.
These boosts have been attributed to the “invisible” variant of the Omicron, or BA.2 as it is officially known. The stealth variant is the Omicron bloodline, which is believed to be 30 percent more transmissible but just as mild as the BA.1 bloodline that took over the world late last year.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (pictured) said Wednesday that the recent rise in Covid cases worldwide is just the “tip of the iceberg”.
The number of cases is on the rise in much of the world, and European countries, which often lead the US by several months during a pandemic, are among those seeing alarming increases. In the UK, the number of cases has jumped 36 percent in the last week, to 91,000 a day. This happens after several weeks of decline.
However, at the moment the situation in America is very positive: the number of cases of the disease is still decreasing, and the stealth variant is still not taking root in the country.
As of Thursday morning, the U.S. is averaging 32,168 new cases daily, down 14 percent from last week and 96 percent short of the peak of 800,000 cases per day reached during the peak of the Omicron surge in mid-January .
However, the sharp drop in cases has slowed, and there are early signs that this trend may soon reverse. After a sharp drop since mid-January, America’s total daily cases have stabilized at around 30,000 a day over the past week with little movement.
This is one of the lowest total cases achieved in the country since the virus first spread across the country in early 2020, but the decline in cases has slowed.
The CDC warned this week that the agency is also seeing the first signs of a surge in cases. Wastewater data for the first decade of March shows an increase in cases at one-third of landfills across America.
Wastewater tracing works by using wastewater samples to determine the prevalence of the virus in each community. Which people actually tested positive for the virus is impossible to determine, as is the exact number of cases, but it gives officials a rough idea of how cases are progressing in certain areas.
Surveillance may be more accurate in assessing Covid risk than raw case data, as many people – especially during a period when so many are vaccinated and revaccinated – carry asymptomatic infection for which they will never be tested and unconsciously spread without being added to the virus. official results.
Covid appears in waste even before a person has symptoms, which means there is a gap between the increase in wastewater rates and the increase in official figures.
Dr. Amy Kirby, who heads the CDC’s wastewater surveillance center, assures the public that there is still nothing to worry about, but officials are monitoring the situation.
“While sewage levels tend to be very low across the board, we’re seeing an increase in facilities reporting increases,” she told NBC.
“These beats may just reflect a slight increase from a very low level to a still low level.”
The current total number of cases in America, however, is so low that a small increase in cases should not be devastating or overburden health care systems.
The CDC warns that wastewater data shows that the number of Covid cases in the US could soon start to rise, according to its wastewater data.
The country also has a high vaccination rate, with nearly 90 percent of American adults having received at least one COVID-19 vaccine, and nearly 100 million Americans have received boosters.
BA.2 failed to gain a foothold in the US in the same way it did in much of Europe. While the “invisible” variant quickly became dominant in the UK and Denmark when it was first discovered earlier this year, it has not yet made much of an impact in America.
BA.2 makes up 23 percent of active Covid cases in the US, with BA.1 still dominating, according to the latest data released by the CDC on Tuesday.
The Omicron variant as a whole accounts for every single US sequencing case, with a highly transmissible, vaccine-resistant strain completely eradicating the Delta variant this year, according to the CDC.
However, BA.2’s share of Covid infections in America is growing rapidly, with the variant accounting for only 11 percent of sequenced cases last week, and only six percent the week before.
It is most prevalent in New Jersey and New York, as well as in the northeastern regions of the United States, which account for about 40 percent of cases in both of these areas.
This strain is not yet the dominant strain of Covid anywhere in the Americas, while it has spread to many parts of Europe.
