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A Covid-19 test site in El Paso, Texas.
Paul Ratje / AFP via Getty Images
Expectations of a post-Omicron pandemic light are fading this week as new currents in parts of Europe raise concerns that yet another bump in cases could hit the US this spring.
There is a decline from a few weeks ago, when public health officials generally predicted a period of relatively low cases after the Omicron wave, and officials suggested that the acute phase of the pandemic could end.
The number of new daily cases is still falling nationally, down from over 800,000 per day on average in mid-January in the US to less than 30,000 per day in mid-March. The number of people hospitalized has also been declining, and the number of coronavirus cases in intensive care units in the US has started at its lowest point since tracking.
In some parts of the US, however, the improvements of recent weeks seem to be starting to pick up. While the rise in new cases is not dramatic, and comes from relatively low levels, they offer worrying indications that a broader upswing could be seen in the coming weeks.
New cases have risen by 29% in Nevada in the last two weeks, according to a New York Times tracker, while the state increase in New York is 21%. In Arkansas, cases are up 18%.
In New York City, hit earlier and harder than the rest of the country when the Omicron wave landed in late December, cases have risen 47% in the last two weeks. The rolling seven-day average number of new daily cases in the city as of Monday was just over 1,000, according to the Times Tracker. That’s just a fraction of the 40,000 new daily cases recorded at the early January high point of the Omicron wave, but it’s up from about 650 that the city picked up in early March.
One driver of the case increase in the US is thought to be the proliferation of a subvariant of Omicron, known as BA.2. In the US, the CDC estimates that 23.1% of Covid-19 cases were caused by BA. 2 in the week ended March 12, up 14.2% from the previous week. In the UK, where new cases in the last two weeks have risen 72% to their highest level since the onset of the pandemic outside the Omicron wave, 76.1% of sequenced infections were caused by BA. 2, according to a March 18 report.
New York State Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett said at a news conference Monday that she did not expect a BA. 2-Drift Flood in New York. “We’ve seen some small relative upticks across the state,” Bassett said. “At this point, even with the increase in cases … we do not expect to see a steady stream of cases in New York State.”
Bassett said that BA. 2 did not grow in New York as fast as it did in the UK She encouraged New Yorkers who did not receive a booster dose of a Covid-19 to get one, and to vaccinate eligible children.
In Clark County, Nevada, which includes the city of Las Vegas, cases have increased by 62% in the last two weeks. In Wayne County, Michigan, which includes Detroit, cases have increased by 75% in the last two weeks.
Surveillance of wastewater in the US for signs of Covid-19 infections, a tool that has attracted increasing attention in recent weeks, shows upticks in a number of large sewage treatment plants. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dashboard, the number of surveillance sites showing the sharpest increases in virus levels has risen 33% in the last week.
Levels are rising in the major sewer systems that serve San Diego, California, parts of Minnesota and parts of New York. They are also in some of the ones that serve Miami-Dade County and Florida.
Speaking of ABC’s The Week on Sunday, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser said Dr. Anthony Fauci that an increase in cases is possible in the US, but that another stream is not a foregone conclusion.
“The bottom line is that we may see an uptick in cases like we have seen in European countries, particularly the UK, where they were in the same situation as we are now,” Fauci said. “Hopefully we will not see any electricity. I do not think we will. The easiest way to prevent that is to keep vaccinating people. And for those who have been vaccinated to continue to get boosted.
Write to Josh Nathan-Kazis at josh.nathan-kazis@barrons.com
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