Covid cases are rising in the US Northeast as many Americans travel and gather for spring break and religious holidays.
The surge is being driven by BA.2, a subvariant of Omicron that is more transmissible than its sibling BA.1 and is responsible for an estimated 86% of new Covid-19 cases nationwide as of last week, according to the US Centers for Disease was Control and Prevention (CDC).
After precautionary measures were relaxed in many places earlier this year, experts have been examining whether BA.2 will lead to a further increase. “This is what the beginnings of waves looked like in the past,” said Julia Raifman, an assistant professor at Boston University School of Public Health.
The rise in cases is expected to disrupt schools and work as more people get sick. The US is now “at a key juncture to trigger action,” Raifman said. “If we act decisively to reduce transmission, we will reduce case growth… and if we don’t, we’re really letting the virus decide what comes next.”
Case numbers in the US remain comparatively low, and rates are still falling in several parts of the country. But the US is seeing an increase in numbers overall, with an average of 30,000 people testing positive each day in the US, compared with about 26,000 last week, the CDC said.
Washington DC, where Mayor Muriel Bowser and US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi each said they contracted Covid cases last week, is posting one of the highest two-week average increases. Rhode Island, Maryland, Kansas, Oregon, New Jersey, Connecticut and New York all saw increases of over 60%.
Philadelphia became the first city to reinstate its indoor mask mandate Monday to stave off a spike in hospital admissions that a University of Pennsylvania model says could increase in the coming weeks. The city will also add requirements to show proof of vaccination if cases continue to rise.
The White House on Wednesday extended its mask mandate for public transport by another two weeks.
Several universities across the US, including Columbia, American, Georgetown, George Washington, Johns Hopkins and Rice, are also returning to campus mask mandates.
However, US hospitalizations for Covid are at a record low, with 74% of hospital beds currently occupied for all causes across the country. However, hospitalizations can be a lagging indicator, so it’s not yet clear if BA.2 will hit the healthcare system hard.
The number of deaths is consistently at just over 500 per day. doctors Hope that access to treatments, including monoclonal antibodies and antivirals for those most at risk, could stem a rise in Covid-related hospitalizations and deaths.
But federal funding for these drugs is phasing out without a new deal yet. For example, only 1.5 million of a planned 10 million courses of the antiviral Paxlovid have been shipped to states and territories.
Hospitalization and death aren’t the only serious consequences – long Covid is also a real problem, Raifman said. Official case numbers are also being impacted by the proliferation of home testing and the lack of affordable testing for those without insurance, she added.
“We’re really going backwards in our response, even if the virus stays with us.”