United States: The summer COVID-19 season in California may be starting earlier than usual since coronavirus concentrations in sewage are growing in some places and the state’s positive-test rate is rising as well.
The trend coincides with the recent family of coronavirus subvariants, known as FLiRT, having experienced notable national expansion.
FLiRT Subvariant Surge
Officially referred to as KP.2, KP.3, and KP.1.1, the FLiRT subvariants have surpassed JN.1, the predominant winter strain. They were thought to be responsible for 50.4% of all coronavirus infections in the country during the two weeks that concluded on Saturday, up from 20% one month prior.
Rather than experiencing decreased COVID-19 circulation as was the case earlier this spring in California, state health officials estimate that the spread is either constant or steadily rising at this time.
Since early May, COVID-19 readings in wastewater have indicated increases in a number of Californian locations. Since May, test positives for COVID-19 have been gradually rising, according to a statement released by the state Department of Public Health to The Times on Friday.
Over the seven-day period that ended Monday, about 3.8% of COVID-19 tests came back positive; in late April, that share was 1.9%. (Last summer’s peak test-positive rate was 12.8%, at the end of August.)
Healthcare Observations
Physicians in Southern California and the San Francisco Bay Area are also witnessing an increase in coronavirus transmission. “We definitely see a bit of a small increase. And this is all due to the so-called FLiRT variants,” stated Dr. Elizabeth Hudson, regional chief of infectious disease at Kaiser Permanente Southern California. The majority of the increase in cases have been seen in outpatient settings thus far. “Anytime there’s a new variant, then, unfortunately, the new variants will have the ability to [overcome immunity resulting from prior infection], and if someone has not been vaccinated for a long time, they obviously won’t have the same level of protection as someone who was more recently vaccinated,” Hudson said.
San Francisco infectious disease specialists are seeing an increase in patients with pneumonia brought on by COVID-19 in the hospital.
As far as COVID goes, “I have seen more sick people in the hospital than I would expect,” according to infectious diseases specialist Dr. Peter Chin-Hong of UC San Francisco. There were very few, “but it’s definitely noticeable.”
Chin-Hong stated that coronavirus activity is “up, and it’s up earlier” based on his analysis of wastewater data.
Data Trends
“It started to rise in late June of last year, and it’s already late May this year,” the person said. We’re starting from a really low level, so it’s a little earlier,” Chin-Hong remarked.
Additionally, Chin-Hong mentioned that anecdotally, it appears that more people in the Bay Area are discussing COVID. A few days prior, he remembered hearing about a child’s school handling a COVID case.
“We expect that since it’s the beginning of summer, so it’s not necessarily an alarming number right now,” Chin-Hong stated.
There has also been a very slight increase in instances reported in recent days by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.
Monitoring Continues
The most current data available, from May 10 to May 15, showed an average of 82 to 92 COVID-19 instances per day, up from earlier in the spring. Between March 25 and May 9, there were, on average, 60 to 80 new cases every day, according to a statement sent by L.A. County health officials to The Times. The case counts usually represent testing conducted at medical facilities; they do not include testing conducted at home or take into consideration illnesses among non-testers.
It’s too soon to know if the current, very slight gain will turn into a longer-term upsurge. The low case counts make it challenging to evaluate true trends at this time, according to the L.A. County Department of Public Health.
With coronavirus levels 9% of the peak from last winter, L.A. County wastewater levels are comparatively constant. However, there is a substantial reporting lag in those findings; the most recent data available covers the 10-day period ending on May 11.