Colorado, along with much of the country, is experiencing a summer bump in COVID-19 infections, showing the virus has yet to fall into a seasonal pattern. typically start spreading in the fall and peter out by spring. In Colorado, the worst points of the pandemic , but COVID-19 hasn’t disappeared in the warmer months, as flu does.
Four years ago, at the beginning of the pandemic, scientists expected the virus would be well on its way to settling into a seasonal pattern by now, said Talia Quandelacy, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Colorado School of Public Health. Now, they’re less sure whether COVID-19 will eventually do that, or if it can keep churning out new variants fast enough to remain active year-round, she said. “That’s one of the big questions in the field,” she said.
Colorado’s most recent showed concentrations of the virus increasing in three-quarters of the 55 utilities statewide that supplied information. The state’s wastewater data doesn’t indicate how widespread a virus is, but it can show whether that particular infection is becoming more or less common. The number of Colorado watersheds showing an increasing pattern has gradually risen since early May, when none were.
The number of new COVID-19 cases reported to the state also has trended upward since mid-May, though since relatively few people get tested in facilities that report results, the figure isn’t a reliable indicator of how many Coloradans actually got sick. Nationwi.
