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 later.
That compares to numbers in the 70s a month ago, he said. Wu said masking and vaccinations are still the best protection against COVID, and “there should be a new vaccine that will be coming for the new respiratory season. So that in combination with masking, when masking is done correctly and the right masks are worn, you’re not only going to protect yourself against COVID but all the other lovely respiratory diseases that are circulating out there.
” Besides rhinovirus, which causes the common cold, Wu said there are “adenovirus, human metapneumovirus, parainfluenza, mycoplasma — that’s a bacteria that causes quote-unquote walking pneumonia. These are all still circulating out there. And before you know it, we’re going to be diving into RSV season in a few months.
” Wu said it’s best to consider a COVID booster at the same time as flu and RSV vaccines, because they tend to rise at the same time. “You really want to time it with respiratory season,” he said. “The RSV certainly comes a little bit earlier, but you want your peak months of November, December, January and February.
So I would say maybe mid- to late October is when you really want to start thinking about getting your COVID vaccine.” Ed Stannard can be reached at [email protected] .
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