Augie RayApr 22, 2023

🧵 on the US #COVID19 outlook:

The coming months are likely to see another surge of infections and risks of Long COVID. Only 17% of the US had received a bivalent booster. If this includes you, now's a great time to fix that oversight. (A new study shows that with new variants, the viral load of infected people is reduced with a booster but isn't with the original vaccination series. Your choice to avoid a booster could become someone else's problem in the months ahead.) https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#rates-by-vaccine-status

COVID Data Tracker

CDC’s home for COVID-19 data. Visualizations, graphs, and data in one easy-to-use website.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Show threadAugie RayApr 22, 2023

What's happening now?

We are seeing the growth of new, more immune-evasive variants. The XBB.1.5 variant became predominant in the US just three months ago, but its share of cases is declining at an accelerating pace. Within two or three weeks, it will no longer be predominant. In its place are a couple of new variants.

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#variant-proportions

COVID Data Tracker

CDC’s home for COVID-19 data. Visualizations, graphs, and data in one easy-to-use website.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Show threadAugie RayApr 22, 2023
One growing variant is XBB.1.16. If you read my updates, you've been hearing about this for the past month as it has caused a significant surge in infections in India. Nicknamed “Arcturus,” this variant was just declared by WHO to be a Variant of Interest (the current highest category of concern). According to the US CDC Nowcast, this variant has grown from 1% to 10% of cases in the past month. It is doubling every 9 days.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2023/04/14/covid-variant-arcturus-india-explained/
What to know about Arcturus, a new coronavirus subvariant the WHO is tracking

India has returned to mask mandates in some areas after rising coronavirus cases linked to a new variant called Arcturus, or XBB.1.16.

The Washington Post
Show threadAugie RayApr 22, 2023

Another variant is also accelerating in the US: XBB.1.9.1. This variant has grown from 3% to 8% of cases in the last month, so its growth rate is smaller than Arcturus. Between the two, the US COVID situation will change in the next month.

COVID is out of the headlines, and it can seem almost everyone is back to normal. Case counts are darn near the lowest of the pandemic--but this is deceiving because testing rates are the lowest they've been since the first few weeks of the pandemic.

Show threadJessica JonikasApr 22, 2023
@augieray Is there a reliable source for monitoring wastewater testing? COVID cautious people I know are looking at declining reported transmission rates as a sign that it’s finally time to unmask in indoor public spaces. But, as you note, it’s also true that COVID testing is at a very low point, so these data aren’t fully reliable. I know people who no longer test at all when sick (let alone report it anywhere even if they did).
Show threadAugie Ray

@jajonikas The US CDC has a good wastewater surveillance chart on their COVID website. https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#wastewater-surveillance

Biobot is good, too, but it is updated less frequently and doesn't seem to include as complete a survey of surveillance sites. https://biobot.io/data/

COVID Data Tracker

CDC’s home for COVID-19 data. Visualizations, graphs, and data in one easy-to-use website.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Apr 22, 2023 at 3:34pmWeb
Show threadJessica JonikasApr 23, 2023
@augieray Great, thank you very much!