While COVID-19 has experienced its annual “summer surge,” the number of cases is beginning to rise again, according to Hartford HealthCare ’s chief epidemiologist. “About two weeks ago, COVID numbers really rose, so we had the summer surge and then they dropped,” said Dr. Ulysses Wu , who is also assistant director of infectious diseases for the health care system.
“But over the last week they started increasing again.” Wu said the rise in summer cases came “just a little bit earlier than what we would normally see.” “A lot of this is being driven by the new variants,” he said, particularly the KP3.
1.1 variant of Omicron, which “is now becoming the predominant variant, and its ability to infect people is probably a little bit better and more efficient than other variants that it previously came from.” Also, because it’s been a hotter summer, “it’s driving people indoors, which increases your risk for transmission,” Wu said.
He said the new variant doesn’t necessarily cause worse illness. “For most people, the majority of people who get COVID Omicron will do OK,” he said. “However, it’s not benign.
We are certainly seeing people still being hospitalized, still people being ventilated and unfortunately still people that are dying from this disease.” There also is still a chance of developing long COVID, he said. Wu said hospitalizations peaked at 140 statewide on July 22, then dropped to 108 on July 31, then rose to 126 two days lat.