Here are the latest national Covid-19 trends, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and major wastewater surveillance providers:
- About 1.5 in every 100,000 people was hospitalized for Covid-19 during the week ending June 22. (Note that these are provisional data.)
- Covid-19 test positivity has increased 21%, from 6.7% of Covid-19 tests returning positive results during the week ending June 15 to 8.1% of tests during the week ending June 22.
- SARS-CoV-2 concentration in wastewater has increased 22% between the week ending June 15 and the week ending June 22, and the national wastewater viral activity level is “low,” per the CDC.
- SARS-CoV-2 concentration in wastewater has increased 8% between the week of June 17 and the week of June 24, per Biobot Analytics.
- SARS-CoV-2 concentration in wastewater has increased 14% between June 17 and June 24, per WastewaterSCAN.
Covid-19 continues spreading widely across the U.S., as summer events like Pride festivities and music festivals continue largely without any collective safety measures. Wastewater surveillance shows that the virus is circulating at similar levels to last summer’s wave, with other parts of the country catching up to the West Coast.
The CDC, Biobot Analytics, and WastewaterSCAN agree that coronavirus spread has been increasing over the last month. The dashboards also show this summer’s wave following a similar trajectory to last year’s, though this year’s wave kicked off a bit earlier in the season; current national levels from both the CDC and WWSCAN are close to reports from the same sources in mid-August 2023. The latest variants likely helped to jumpstart this year’s wave earlier.
Wastewater surveillance also shows that the West Coast continues to report the highest coronavirus levels. I noted last week that this region may be reaching a plateau; Biobot and WWSCAN continue to show that potential plateau, while the CDC reports continued increases in this region, so it will take more weeks of data to say for sure. Meanwhile, wastewater sites in the Midwest and South report clear increases.
According to the CDC, states that currently have “high” or “very high” SARS-CoV-2 levels in wastewater include California, Washington, Hawaii, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Missouri, Arkansas, Florida, Texas, Louisiana, Maryland, and Massachusetts. As usual, it’s worth noting that some of these states have more comprehensive wastewater testing than others, so some states that are currently shaded in lighter colors on the CDC’s map may be missing outbreaks.
Even with less comprehensive reporting from hospitals, healthcare system metrics have started to pick up these increased infections, on their typical delay from wastewater surveillance. Hospitals sharing data with the CDC report provisional increases in Covid-associated hospitalizations, while the agency’s emergency department and lab testing networks report similar patterns. Test positivity from the CDC’s lab network has nearly doubled between late May and late June (from 4.1% to 8.1%).
Last week, the CDC recommended that all Americans, ages six months and older, receive an updated 2024-25 Covid-19 vaccine once the doses become available this fall. This guidance should be the bare minimum for Covid-19 precautions, yet it’s essentially the entire U.S. government strategy to contain the disease at this point in the (still ongoing!) pandemic. Vaccines do not prevent infection, they only reduce risk of severe outcomes.
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