SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- COVID-19 is increasing across the country and in the Bay Area. "The summer surge is upon us. We have seen an increase in the number of COVID patients coming and seeking care in our emergency department," said Dr.
Nida Degesys, Assistant Medical Director, UCSF Parnassus Adult Emergency Department. In the Bay Area, according to California Department of Public Health data, hospitalizations began to go up in June. Numbers are still increasing, but are not as high as in January during the winter surge.
Graph not displaying correctly? Click here to open in a new window . The increase is also showing up in wastewater samples from three Bay Area water plants, which reveals a higher rise than hospitalization numbers. "They are still trending upward.
We are not sure how high they are actually going to get," said Alexandria Boehm, Stanford professor in Environmental Studies Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering. "The levels right now are actually almost as high as they were during the omicron surge which happened in 2022.
" Nationwide, while COVID-19 hospitalizations are increasing, it's at a much lower rate compared to past surges -- similar to Bay Area hospitalization trends. Graph not displaying correctly? Click here to open in a new window . Dr.
Degesys is seeing more COVID-19 cases, but said patients are not as sick as in the early days of the pandemic. "They are fully vaccinated, so we are very lucky to have a very high proportion of our patient popula.