Betsy Ladyzhets

Four months into the winter disease season, there’s still a lot of SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses going around. Wastewater and other indicators show that Covid-19 levels are still high across the country, not sharply declining as we usually expect for this time of year. Disease levels are particularly high in the South and Midwest.

While Covid-19 is clearly still spreading at high rates across the U.S., data sources are giving us mixed signals as to whether transmission is going up or down. Wastewater surveillance suggests transmission may be increasing in some places and decreasing in others, while healthcare system data show continued, but slow, declines in severe acute Covid-19…

Continuing a trend from last week, wastewater surveillance data for the U.S. indicate that this winter’s Covid-19 surge may have gotten a second wind. National trends show slow declines or plateaus in SARS-CoV-2 transmission, while regional trends suggest transmission may be picking up again in the Northeast and South.

All available Covid-19 metrics suggest that the U.S. is a couple of weeks past the peak of this winter’s major surge. Hospital-related metrics, test positivity and SARS-CoV-2 levels in wastewater are all declining. However, some wastewater dashboards suggest we may be approaching a plateau in transmission, meaning the steep decline observed over the last two…

Two weeks of data now suggest this winter’s Covid-19 surge may have peaked in the U.S., with other respiratory viruses following a similar pattern. Disease levels are still very high across the country, though; it will be several more weeks before the country is out of this surge, and its full impacts will be hidden…