People's CDC COVID-19 Weather Report

The Current Situation – “The Weather”:

The US continues to experience a surge. The CDC transmission map shows almost 99 percent of people in the US at high/substantial transmission.

This map and corresponding table show COVID community transmission in the US by county. Most of the US map is red, indicating high levels at 96 percent of the population or 78 percent of counties. An additional 2.8 percent of the population or 11 percent of counties are in areas with substantial transmission, in orange. Nearly 99 percent of the US population lives in an area with high or substantial COVID transmission. Only the middle vertical line of the contiguous US--the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and northern Texas--show a higher concentration of moderate and low transmission, in yellow and blue, respectively. The graphic is visualized by the People’s CDC and the data are from the CDC.

This video shows the evolution of 2022 transmission levels from March 15th – June 9th. After a brief lull in March, the Northeast begins turning red in early April and now most of the country is red.

On Variants:

BA2.12 is still the dominant variant in the US, at 62%. BA4 & BA5 are shown in light & dark teal, respectively; BA4/5 are most common in the South & West currently. They are growing in prevalence; people with previous infections may not be protected from these new variants.

A chart showing weeks 3/5/2022 through 6/4/2022 with levels for each viral lineage shown vertically. In early March, BA.1.1 was the dominant lineage, with small levels of B.1.1.529 and BA.2. As time goes on, BA.2 starts to grow, and BA.1.1 and B.1.1.529 shrink. Around the end of March, BA.2.121 appears and then grows. In mid-May, BA.2.121 and BA.2 are equally found. By 5/21/2022, BA.2.121 overtakes BA.2 as the dominant variant. In early May, BA.4 and BA.5 appear, and together represent more than 10 percent of cases by 6/4/22.

Wastewater Monitoring:

Wastewater is a useful metric that doesn’t rely on accurate case counts (& we know that covid cases are undercounted across the country). However, it is important this data is used in ethical ways.

Nationally, wastewater levels are higher than the Delta surge last fall. Levels seem to have plateaued.

A graph demonstrating differences in wastewater viral concentration and daily clinical cases. At the top left is a legend. The top line, in solid blue, represents viral concentration as determined by wastewater. The bottom line, in light blue, represents a daily average of clinical cases and follows the same pattern but is slightly lower throughout and much lower during large COVID waves. Bars in the same light blue color represent the total amount of clinical daily cases. There are small spikes in the graph in April 2020, January 2021, and September 2021, and a large spike in January 2022. The end of the graph shows low levels in April 2022 but a rapid increase to the present. For the most part, the wastewater and cases lines track together, but the wastewater line rises sooner and moves higher than the cases line in fall of 21 and again with the latest spike. At the bottom, text reads "Source: Wastewater data from Biobot Analytics, Inc; Clinical data from USA Facts."

When we look at regional data, we see that the appearance of that plateau is attributed to a decline in wastewater concentration in the Northeast (yellow). Other parts of the country continue to rise, albeit slowly.

This is a chart of Covid-19 Wastewater Monitoring by Region. “Wastewater: Effective SARS-CoV-2 virus concentration (copies per milliliter of sewage.)” It displays trends in wastewater in the last 6 weeks, from early May to early June 2022. There are 4 lines that start in early May with the lowest concentration in the South, in pink, at a concentration of 320, and the highest in the Northeast, in yellow, with a concentration of 596. The other two, Midwest and West, in purple and aqua respectively, were in the mid 300s. The Northeast shows the greatest rise in concentration over 6 weeks, with a peak in mid-May at 1,064. It has since slowly decreased, with the most recent datapoint on 6/8/22 at 734. The other three regions have been increasing slowly for the most part, and presently, the south and midwest regions seem to be plateauing at 750s and 590s respectively while the west is most steadily increasing, currently at 839. At bottom, source: Wastewater data from Biobot Analytics Inc.

Hospitalizations:

For 7 weeks in a row, hospitalizations are rising nationally, though still at relatively low levels. Hospitalizations seem to have peaked in the Northeast but are rising in other regions.

A graph of new admissions per 100,000 population is indicated on the y-axis and by month, indicated on the x-axis. At the top, bold black text reads "New Admissions of Patients with Confirmed COVID-19, United States." Below, text reads, "Aug 1, 2020 to June 8, 2022." The hospitalizations peak mid-January 2021, late March 2021, early September 2021, early January 2022, and mid-May 2022. January 2022 has the highest and sharpest peak at 8.38 admissions per 100,000. Lately, the hospitalizations hover at around 1.5 to 2 admissions per 100,000. — *Source: Unified Hospital Dataset, White House COVID-19 Team, Data Strategy and Execution Workgroup.*

Hospitalization numbers, like testing and other metrics, have become harder to assess with changing definitions.

Deaths:

In the past week, from June 2 to June 8, 2174 people died of COVID nationally, up 27% from last week.

Again, remember that COVID deaths are also underreported.

Be Prepared, Whatever the Weather:

Inspired by this week’s episode of @DeathPanel_ fInspired by this week’s episode of @DeathPanel_ featuring @Theresa_Chapple – which we recommend checking out – we wanted to make a few things very clear:

You can get COVID outside! If you’re at a crowded outdoor event, in a bustling farmers market, or playing pick-up basketball with friends, mask up wearing a high-quality mask.
You can get COVID more than once. The virus changes rapidly, and there are multiple variants circulating at once, so reinfection with Omicron variants can happen frequently and within months of previous infection. There is no herd immunity to COVID because immunity wanes relatively quickly and vaccinated people can still transmit the virus. Other mitigation measures such as high-quality masks, good ventilation, updated vaccines & paid sick leave are necessary to slow transmission.
Kids can get and spread COVID, and can be harmed by it.

Forecast:

There’s some vaccine news on the horizon. First, a new, non-mRNA vaccine met the first steps of approval, but data presented to the FDA does not tell us how this vaccine will perform against newer Omicron strains.

And keep your eye out for news about a new Omicron-specific booster, an important contribution since all other vaccines to this point were designed for the original strain and are less effective than they once were.

On Long COVID:

We want to say plainly that you can have a mild infection and still get Long COVID.

And, vaccinated people can also get Long COVID.

Tiny Tip:

As climate change continues largely unmitigated, we will continue to see spillover diseases like COVID and #Monkeypox.

Last week, the CDC released a resource about strategies to avoid Monkeypox at social gatherings and during sex which is wonderfully sex-positive.

But the CDC has been inconsistent when it comes to acknowledging the possibility of airborne transmission of Monkeypox, initially recommending masks, and then moving away from that recommendation.

They say the change was because of “confusion” caused by the recommendation. We suspect this change was political, and want to advance their original guidance:

“Wear a mask. Wearing a mask can help protect you from many diseases, including monkeypox.”

People’s CDC COVID-19 Weather Report