United States: According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Covid is surging widespread across the US, where the level of virus presence has exceeded last summer’s wave nationally and is steadily reaching the levels that were reported last winter in the West, as per the wastewater data.
More about the news
As per the experts, despite the rising levels, the uptake of vaccination and antivirals is lagging owing to inequitable access, whereas other preventive measures, such as wearing masks, are being met with increasing resistance, as the Guardian reported.
According to Dr Peter Chin-Hong, professor of medicine and infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, “A lot of people right now are getting Covid all over the country,” and “There are still hospitalizations, and there’s still a few hundred deaths every week in the US – and that’s a tragedy.”

Rising cases by Flirt variants
The rise in cases is majorly attributed to trip-threat variants of Flirt, which appear more immune-evasive and transmissible.
Moreover, most parts of the US are experiencing heat waves, and many Americans are staying indoors to avoid the heat, which is spreading the virus more.
On a national scale, the number of emergency rooms (ERs) due to Covid cases has increased by 15.7 percent in the past week. Meanwhile, the hospitalization rates are also now touching the last summer count.
According to the experts, it is difficult to make comparisons now as quite a few hospitals are required to report higher COVID-19 rates than in previous years.
Chin-Hong added, “Any hospitalization or death could be completely prevented based on the tools that we have,” as the Guardian reported.
Moreover, David Grabowski, a professor of healthcare policy at Harvard Medical School, also said that compared to other surges, “it just feels like a very different time right now” and that “it’s pretty rare to go into a building and see people masked”—even in hospitals and nursing homes.
What more are the experts stating?
According to the experts, the summer surge comes as the policies of the federal and state governments lift all restrictions, which could be helpful in containing the virus further.
Officials in New York City and Los Angeles support the move and are considering doing the same. North Carolina recently signed into law restrictions on wearing face masks in public.
Leave a Reply