COVID-19 levels are still high in South Carolina heading into winter virus season, with an increasing number of people seeking care in emergency rooms around the state and outbreaks continuing in nursing homes. Nationally, however, the peak of a summer surge may be past as winter virus season approaches and new COVID-19 vaccines will be available soon alongside flu shots, federal officials said. There were more than 1,500 COVID-related visits to emergency rooms around South Carolina for the week that ended Aug.
17, part of a steadily rising trend, and 28 COVID outbreaks in long-term care facilities, about the same as the previous two weeks, the Department of Public Health reported . "This year, the peak happened and it doesn’t seem to be going down," said Dr. Martha Buchanan, interim director for communicable disease prevention and control at the Public Health Department.
But based on wastewater virus detection and other sources, it looks like the country as a whole may be just past the peak of the current surge, said Dr. Mandy Cohen, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ER visits nationally declined 2.
6 percent compared to the previous week, the CDC reported . But "we're not out of the woods yet," said Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC.
Looking ahead to the fall and winter, when not only COVID but the flu and respiratory syncytial virus will be infecting people, the CDC is pre.