Several key COVID-19 trends that authorities are monitoring are now accelerating across the country, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Friday. It is the first major national increase in the spread of the virus seen in months.
The biggest increases are in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic, the agency said in its weekly report. UPDATED Friday, although nearly all areas of the country are now seeing acceleration.
Data reported by the agency from emergency rooms and effluent Sampling has seen some of the steepest increases so far this season in the area that covers Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin.
Prices of infections Nursing home residents in this Midwestern region have also soared in recent weeks, higher than in most other parts of the country, approaching levels not seen since the peak of the COVID-19 wave last winter.
“Remember we had a surge of COVID at the end of the summer. We've come down from that. We're back again, which we expect again, after a lot of travel and Thanksgiving gatherings,” CDC Director Dr. Maddy Cohen said Thursday in a Parliamentary committee hearing.
Almost 2 million Americans are now living counties considered to have “high” levels of COVID-19 hospitalizations, where the CDC prompts cover-up to the public and other precautions to limit the threat posed by the virus.
About 1 in 10 Americans are now in communities with “medium” levels of hospitalizations, where the agency advises some extra precautions for Americans at risk.
Cohen said the agency is also watching for other respiratory illnesses that accelerate in recent weeks before the surge of COVID-19, consistent with previous fall and winter virus seasons.
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Respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, is now “near its peak” in many southern states that first saw cases and hospitalizations among young children rise earlier this year.
In an updated report This week, the CDC's disease forecasters said RSV hospitalizations were at levels worse than pre-pandemic periods but likely on track to reach a “lower and later peak” than last year.
Flu trends have also accelerated nationally, the agency said, with more increases expected in December. However, data from emergency rooms suggest that flu has not yet eclipsed the levels of COVID-19 overall.
“Even though both are on the rise and we're on top of RSV, COVID is still the respiratory virus that puts the most people in the hospital and kills them,” Cohen said.
Officials say they are also following up on reports of other causes pneumonia-like illness in children this year, as has the common bacterium mycoplasma that has shared responsibility for The recent rise of China in pediatric hospitals. Health authorities also reported seeing mycoplasma pneumonia among cases of sick children in Ohio.
Several countries abroad have also seen steeper increases of bacterial infections in children at this time, which experts say had largely disappeared around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic. Denmark recently warned was reaching epidemic levels of mycoplasma.
Cohen said Friday at a briefing with reporters that U.S. trends suggest that respiratory illnesses in children have not been “atypical” so far.
Health officials in Ohio also hadn't seen an unusual strain on their hospitals, he said, and most of the children in the cases were “recovering at home.”
“We see COVID and flu and RSV as well as some pneumonia, but nothing beyond what we would see,” Cohen said, citing data the agency analyzed from testing labs and emergency rooms around the country.
Weekly measurements of emergency room visits for the flu — which, in a CDC study before the pandemic, it was ranked among the most common causes of pneumonia – they have increased among school children nationwide in recent months.
In contrast to what is seen in adults, rates of influenza in emergency room visits for children remain many times higher than for COVID-19.
“Right now, what we're seeing is pretty typical of this moment in the winter respiratory virus season,” Cohen said.
