COVID-19 cases surge amid the holiday season, according to the Centers for Disease Control. In their recent wastewater analysis, CDC reports a high level of COVID-19 in almost every state.
As of early December 22, many of the states in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic show “very high” levels of COVID-19 strains; while California, Colorado, Alabama, Kansas, Nevada, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Virginia are marked as “high”.
At least 23 states are recorded with alarming levels of COVID-19 strains:
- Arkansas
- Idaho
- Delaware
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Iowa
- Maine
- Massachusetts
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- Missouri
- Montana
- Nebraska
- New Hampshire
- New Jersey
- North Carolina
- Ohio
- South Carolina
- South Dakota
- Vermont
- West Virginia
- Wisconsin
The levels spiked to 10.55 in the Midwest states on December 9, while the Northeast followed with 9.45, South (7.26), and West (5.24). These numbers surpassed last year’s data.
This wastewater analysis is one of the CDC’s methods of tracking contagions as there has been a drop in people testing for the virus or reporting to their local or state health officials.
“People are detecting it in wastewater at as high a rate as they were detecting omicron when it first emerged,” remarked Kanta Subbarao, director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza in Melbourne.
Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an expert on infectious disease at the University of California, had earlier expressed worries that this wastewater analysis serves as a “canary in the coalmine” and that “it’s going to translate into hospitalizations around Christmas time.”
The CDC warns that there has been a surge of respiratory illness all over the US. According to the latest data, at least 29,000 patients were admitted with Covid-19, while 15,000 with flu and respiratory syncytial virus.
In recent weeks, emergency room visits in various hospitals noted a 12 percent spike and out-patient hospitalization rose to 17 percent.
As per CDC reports, respiratory virus activity has been rising for weeks. At least two-thirds of the United States experience high or very high flu-like activity.
With the recent spike in respiratory virus levels, hospitals in at least five states have reimplemented mask mandates.
By December 23, 230 US counties reported “high” levels of Covid-19 admissions. While about a thousand other counties note “medium” COVID-19 hospitalization levels.
This rise in Covid-19 cases can be tracked in the recently discovered JN.1 strain which comes from a highly mutated “Pirola” omicron variant.
JN.1 spreads rapidly around the world and is now the fastest-mutating Covid variant in the US.
However, some X users are wary of the report as health professionals also claim that wastewater surveillance is unreliable. Research by virological.org says “One CANNOT assemble genomes from a typical wastewater sample except under highly controlled conditions. A major reason is because genetic material from multiple strains and persons are mixed or pooled together. Reads generated are also much shorter than the lengths of SC2 genomes. This leads to loss of physical linkage (phasing) information in diluted samples and/or samples with low percent reference coverage.”
Another expressed frustration as the media continued on COVID-19 hysteria, while figures show that the “real monster under the bed is fentanyl poisoning.”
