A sub-variant of omicron is causing COVID-19 cases to rise across the country once again.
According to the CDC, the BA.2 variant of COVID-19 accounts for almost ninety percent of new cases nationwide.
“It has a 30 percent growth rate over BA.1, somehow, so it’s even more contagious than the insanely contagious omicron or BA.1,” said Graham McKeen, the assistant director of public and environmental health at IU.
But because testing has dropped off significantly, the number of positive cases reported is likely low.
Nationally, a little more than a half-million tests are being administered daily, a drop of more than a third from the peak of the last COVID wave in January. In Indiana, around 5,000 tests have been administered daily over the past week.
The seven-day average of positive cases in the U.S. is a little over 35,000. Indiana’s seven-day average is just 237. Still, the national number is up nearly 40 percent over two weeks ago.
“Seventy-five percent of all tests nationally are taken at home, and therefore not reportable,” McKeen said. “So, I think, while lagging, the biggest thing we need to watch now is hospitalizations.”
Nationally, just under 1,400 people are hospitalized with the virus. That’s a drop of 93 percent from the last wave in January. Indiana’s COVID dashboard no longer reports hospitalizations in the state.
McKeen said that doesn’t mean people should relax. But, he said, because so many people have had the virus or have been vaccinated already, there is a lot of immunity in the community.
“Maybe that’s part of what we’re seeing now as to why the BA.2A surges has so far been a little more tempered and maybe a little more decoupled from those severe outcomes, like hospitalizations and death,” McKeen said.
On Monday, Philadelphia became the first major city in the U.S. to reinstate an indoor mask mandate. But, later in the day, a federal judge in Florida overturned a federal mandate requiring masks on all public transportation, such as airplanes and buses.
It’s those kinds of conflicting policies that lead to confusion – and anger – about mandates.
“I think there’s a camp now that thinks these mandates need to take a pause, that they are not necessary right now, just to kind of preserve that public health authority for when it is needed,” McKeen said. “But, based on what we know of COVID, (Philadelphia’s decision) going to help prevent some of the more severe outcomes.”
