Though results are spotty and fragmented in many places, sewage tests point to a up-to-date wave of COVID-19 infections, with an estimated one-third of Americans expected to fall ill with the disease by the end of February.
With pandemic fatigue also in full swing, and deaths and hospitalizations down significantly from 2021 peaks due to high vaccination rates and immunity, many are inclined to ignore the up-to-date wave, fueled by the JN.1 variant. But COVID-19 is still claiming thousands of lives a month. Experts emphasize that older, sicker people need to take extra precautions, and everyone should consider the devastating disease known as long COVID, which can strike even juvenile, robust people and last for years.
Wastewater studies suggest the current wave of COVID-19 peaked in overdue December, with 1.9 million infections per day, the highest since the omicron wave of 2021. Some experts want to maintain and expand wastewater surveillance to stay on top of future waves at the state and local level, even as the public has grown weary of COVID-19 mitigation efforts.
“If you know you’re one of the first communities where cases are rising rapidly, that can be very helpful,” said Michael Hoerger, an assistant professor at Tulane University School of Medicine who developed the study. national respect on peak infection rates and projections of future infections.
Like many experts, Hoerger said everyone should be more aware of the high risks and try to avoid getting or reinfecting COVID-19, because each up-to-date infection increases the risk of long COVID. He said Americans may be experiencing “decline neglect,” a phenomenon that makes people more negligent when things are improving.
“Everyone is susceptible in some way. The best way to avoid long COVID is to avoid COVID,” Hoerger said.
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Deaths have declined more slowly in states with older populations, such as Vermont, Hawaii and Maine, according to a Stateline analysis of preliminary data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Vermont hospital workers He started to mask again earlier this month amid a up-to-date surge in cases.
Alarms are also sounding in other states: Indiana’s most populous county he asked residents with subtle symptoms to avoid crowded emergency rooms and to prioritize patients who are seriously ill with COVID-19 and other respiratory illnesses. Michigan Mid-January saw the highest weekly death toll from COVID-19 since overdue 2022, at about 156. Illinois earlier this month, COVID-19 hospitalizations jumped 17% in one week.
However, it is challenging to assess local trends when tests are inconsistent and analysis methods vary.
CDC publishes “current conditions” a map based on wastewater analysis that shows “high” or “very high” levels of COVID-19 in wastewater for every state with enough data. The categories are not detailed but indicate levels of the virus that are high compared to the past.
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At the same time, however, public patience with wearing masks and other precautions is at a low level, which increases the likelihood of the infection spreading and claiming up-to-date victims among vulnerable people.
In South Carolina, Clemson University earned high marks for its wastewater oversight program in 2020, earning a congratulatory visit from the White House coronavirus task force. But today, the university has lost interest, said David Freedman, an environmental engineering professor who has overseen three wastewater treatment plants, including the university’s.
He is currently monitoring just one community plant, though he can tell that COVID-19 levels there are higher than at any point in 2021, based on the copies of the virus detected in tests. Even the university plant itself has withdrawn from testing, he said.
“The tests are free, but it’s a bit of work to get a sample and send it in, and I haven’t been able to convince the university to continue doing that,” Freedman said. “Interest has really waned.
“To me, it’s almost unethical that we’re not warning people that this highly contagious virus is still with us and that some people really should take precautions,” he added. “Some people with higher health risks really should start wearing masks again.”
Clemson spokesman Joe Galbraith said the university considers wastewater testing a “valuable tool” but recently decided to rely on individual COVID-19 tests to monitor the disease at the university. Clemson, however, is working with the state and other universities in South Carolina to establish a statewide wastewater testing program, Galbraith said.
In other states such as: New York AND Oregon.
Older people and cancer patients are making up a growing share of COVID-19 deaths, according to a Stateline analysis. People 65 and older made up 88% of those deaths last year, up from 69% in the peak year of deaths, 2021. Cancer patients made up 12% of COVID-19 deaths last year, up from 5% in 2021.
In some states with older populations, COVID-19 deaths remain stubbornly high compared with other states. Vermont had the lowest COVID-19 death rate in the country in 2021, but now has the fourth-highest per capita death rate, behind Kentucky, West Virginia and Mississippi.
I think it is downright unethical that we are not warning people that this highly contagious virus is still among us and that some people really should be careful.
– David Freedman, environmental engineer at Clemson University in South Carolina
Last year, Vermont recorded 220 COVID-19-related deaths, the analysis found. That was nearly two-thirds of the 331 total in 2021.
No other state had such a high percentage: Next was Hawaii, where 35% of the peak COVID-19 deaths in 2021 were reported in 2023. Then came Maine (32%), Massachusetts (31%) and New Hampshire (29%) – all relatively aged populations.
Texas, which is a relatively juvenile state, recorded 10% fewer COVID-19 deaths last year than in 2021, or about 4,700 versus 48,000.
Vermont has seen an escalate in COVID-19 hospitalizations this year and has suggested people wear masks if they believe they have been exposed or are at high risk for stern illness, said Ben Truman, a spokesman for the state health department. The guidance also applies to influenza and RSV, which peak in the winter months, he said.
Vermonters responded calmly and collaboratively early in the pandemic, which allowed them to save lives faster than other states, said John Davy, an epidemiologist with the state health department.
“It wasn’t divisive. It wasn’t an identity issue,” Davy said.
In some areas, the latest wave of infections could be even higher than the omicron wave of 2021, which peaked at about 6.5 million infections per day, according to Hoerger’s analysis. In Santa Clara County, home to California’s Silicon Valley, sewage to introduce In some areas, infections reached an all-time high earlier this month.
Hospitalizations and deaths in the area remain low, said Sarah Rudman, deputy health director for the county health department, but the county is advising people who may be exposed to the virus to check with their doctors and consider wearing a mask. “It’s an individual decision,” she said.
The county’s wastewater monitoring covers 90% of county residents and has forceful support from local universities. The county uses an advanced form of measurement that can estimate the number of cases in a community without individual testing, Rudman said. It helps that the county started collecting data early and can compare levels since the beginning of the pandemic, she added.
Even people with no hidden risk factors can get devastating, long-term COVID.
Jay Breneman was 39, an athlete, cyclist, and marathon trainer, when he contracted COVID-19 in the summer of 2022 — too juvenile to qualify for drugs like Paxlovid at the time — and ended up in bed or in a wheelchair for more than a year.
Breneman, the school board president in Erie, Pennsylvania, said he wears masks in public despite harassment, including from a man who told him on election night at Democratic National Committee headquarters that COVID-19 was a “mission.”
“It was hell. There’s no other word to describe it,” Breneman said. “I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. And every single person I know is sick with something right now. The last thing I want right now is to get sick again.”
Status Line is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) charitable organization. Stateline maintains editorial independence. For questions, contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger: [email protected]. Follow Stateline on Facebook AND Twitter.
