US President Joe Biden has declared the pandemic to be over by September 2022. In the weeks since 2024, however, global data indicate an increase in infections.
While vaccination programs may stabilize the number of hospitalizations, experts warn that authorities may be responding to significant risks ahead.
The latest to sound the alarm is Lucky Tran, Columbia University’s Science Communication US in a 2010 study. 2023 ended with the level of viral activity of SARS-COV-2 in wastewater increasing significantly according to national and regional trends.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National standard Liquid water viral activity for the period ending December 30 stood at 12.85 compared to 5.45 a month ago.
of Measurements They are based on the number of standard deviations above the threshold, they are converted to a linear scale. The regions with the highest numbers are the US Midwest and South at 16.57 and 13.86 respectively.
The CDC estimates that wastewater monitoring can detect the spread of the virus before clinical diagnosis and before people become ill. It can also indicate asymptomatic transmission. Nationally, the level of viral activity in wastewater for Covid-19 is in the “very high” range.
Tran said.“We are currently in the second peak of the pandemic. Next week will have a peak, with ~2 million infections per day. At this peak, 100 million people in total (~1 in 3 people in the US) could have covid.”
He was not alone in his anxiety. The new data is among the evidence that has prompted Eric Topol, professor of molecular medicine and CEO of the nonprofit Scripps Research. LA Times About the new covid variant JN.1.
“In terms of wastewater volume, JN.1 is now tied for the second largest wave of infections in the US after Omicron,” he said late last week. Because many people test at home or don’t test at all, we lack the ability to track the exact number of infections, but very high levels of sewage virus infect about two million Americans every day.
Topol warned that only 19 percent of eligible Americans received the vaccine, which has been boosted and immunity is waning within four to six months.
“We continue to believe that the epidemic is over, that the infection has reduced to the level of the common flu in those already exposed, and that life has returned to normal.” “Unfortunately, none of this is true. The high number of infections in the current wave will undoubtedly lead to long-term suffering from Covid. For a large number of people, especially those who are elderly, immunocompromised, or cohabiting, direct respiratory infection with COVID is not nearly as common.
He criticized Biden’s response to the rising numbers, his lack of support for nasal vaccines and his lack of support for research on long-term COVID. according to White House statementthe US administration has built a “robust emergency response infrastructure” to address the additional threats posed by Covid.
In the year In May 2023, WHO Director-General Theodore Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that Covid-19 represented an “ongoing pandemic” and was an established health issue, although it was not a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).
“Despite the global risk assessment being high, there is evidence of reduced risks to human health, primarily due to greater population immunity from infection, vaccination, or both, of currently circulating Omicron subspecies compared to previously circulating Omicron subspecies. Pedigree; and improved clinical case management,” he said.
“These factors have contributed to the sharp global decline in weekly COVID-19 deaths, hospitalizations, and admissions to intensive care units since the start of the epidemic. While SARS-CoV-2 continues to evolve, the current circulating variants do not appear to be associated with weight gain.”
Matthew Fox, professor of epidemiology and global health at Boston University The record The data from the wastewater data is alarming, but it remains to be seen how many vaccines and defenses developed against exposure to the virus will prevent hospitalizations.
“The data indicates a significant increase in cases and that is worrying,” he said. But because so many people are testing at home, we don’t know much about actual case numbers and we can’t learn much about severity from things like wastewater data, so we need hospital treatment data for that. We saw it there. It’s on the rise both in the US and abroad, but nothing like we’ve seen with pre-vaccines. There are many immunities that have been developed and the vaccine is still working on these new variants and so far we are doing okay, although not as well as we have, it would be a concern if we had a better option to evade immunity and if we knew earlier that we needed good surveillance systems.
In December, the WHO introduced JN.1, the omicron variant, to the “variant of interest” classification, second only to the high-level “stress variant” classification for omicron, delta, and alpha. The decision is partly based on wastewater data.
The US is not alone when it comes to evidence of an increase in covid in wastewater. In the Netherlands, the number of people hospitalized increased rapidly in mid-December, but the scale of the virus in Dirty water came out 57 percent in a week to 4,438 virus particles per 100,000 inhabitants. The number fell to 2,966 by the end of the month, up from 57 in July.
Harald Wiechgel, spokesman for the public health institute RIVM, told a Dutch news channel: “We have built up resistance with vaccines and the chance of hospitalization is low, but COVID can still make people seriously ill.” “
French, GermanAnd data from Denmark shows a significant increase in evidence of covid in wastewater.
However, the UK has chosen to stop using wastewater in March 2022 due to Covid-19. A spokesperson for the UK Health Protection Agency (UKHSA) said. The record The decision was made following the success of the government-mandated vaccination program at the beginning of 2022, which has significantly reduced the number of people who become seriously ill and die from the virus.
“At the time, the UKHSA was committed to maintaining vital surveillance capabilities, and that can still be seen in the winter Covid infection survey by the ONS and weekly winter flu and covid-19 surveillance reports. This surveillance contains information on levels of covid-19. Prevalence rates and also hospital admission rates.”
Last weekend, White House spokeswoman Karin Jean-Pierre said. The masking policy will be extended to state and regional levels, at least in hospital settings. Only time will tell how much the data will need to change for national governments to re-direct public health policy. ®