Docs Watch With ‘Some Anxiety’ For Post-Holiday COVID Spike

April 19, 2022 – It’s turn into all too acquainted in recent times: People collect for holidays, COVID-19 instances rise, and hospitalizations observe.

Now, simply past our first batch of holidays since Christmas and New Year’s Eve – which led to an enormous Omicron spike – the medical neighborhood is watching carefully for a possible rise in instances.

The expectation? There could also be a small enhance in instances tied to final weekend’s Easter and Passover celebrations, however nothing like what we’ve seen prior to now, docs predict. It will possible be one other week, not less than, earlier than we all know for certain, as instances have a tendency to come back within the days after a vacation.

“Even before the holidays, we were starting to see a little bit of an uptick in cases, and I suspect that may continue because of the holidays and people getting together and spending time with individuals they usually aren’t around,” says Timothy Brewer, MD, a professor of medication and epidemiology on the UCLA School of Medicine. “But we’re not expecting the big increases like we saw during the winter.”

The winter Omicron surge led to skyrocketing numbers, and by mid-January, the 7-day day by day common variety of instances topped 800,000. That slowly dropped and, by mid-March, bottomed out round 26,000 instances a day. Now, the 7-day day by day common exceeds 35,000, in response to the CDC.

Although the numbers stay low by comparability, folks ought to keep in mind there’s nonetheless a threat, Brewer says.

“SARS-CoV-2 has never gone away,” he says. “I realize that a lot of us have gotten tired of the pandemic and want it to go away, but that doesn’t mean it is.”

The bump in instances comes as mask-wearing might turn into extra of an exception than a rule. A federal decide in Florida on Monday struck down the Biden administration’s masks mandate for public transportation, most notably airplanes, and airways together with Delta, American, and United have already made mask-wearing non-compulsory.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki known as the choice “disappointing.”

But on the identical day, Philadelphia’s indoor masks mandate went again into impact after metropolis Health Commissioner Cheryl Bettigole, MD, mentioned there had been a 50% rise in confirmed COVID-19 instances in 10 days.

And although a second booster has not been licensed for most of the people, the FDA recommends one other dose of both the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine for folks over 50 and for sure folks with compromised immune programs.

Meanwhile, instances of the extremely infectious Omicron subvariants proceed to crop up, although it’s nonetheless unclear whether or not individuals who have contracted Omicron are immune, says Daniel Kuritzkes, MD, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

“We’re all watching with some level of anxiety about just where the case numbers are heading,” he says. “They are going up slowly, but not nearly as dramatically as December.”

He continues, “It’s a bit of a unique year, this year. Two holidays coincided, but by themselves, they don’t have the kind of impact as, say, Christmas and New Year’s Eve. We will be watching more closely to see what happens after Memorial Day.”

Despite decrease numbers, Kuritzkes and Brewer advocate that individuals, significantly those that are high-risk, proceed to take precautions, together with:

• Thorough and frequent hand-washing
• Getting updated on COVID-19 vaccines
• Testing when signs come up and staying house in case you’re beneath the climate
• Continuing to put on masks for individuals who are immunocompromised
• Opting for outside gatherings over massive indoor gatherings

Though the world has gotten nearer to regular, we aren’t out of the woods but, Brewer says.

“It’s not like the flu yet – when cases drop, they don’t drop to those low levels,” he says. “Most communities in the United States are reported as having low transmission levels, but it’s not zero. We still need to be vigilant.”