Not Over Yet: Late-Summer Covid Wave Brings Warning of More to Come

[elleng]

Hospitalizations are still low but have been rising in recent weeks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A late-summer wave of coronavirus infections has touched schools, workplaces and local government, as experts warn the public to brace for even more Covid-19 spread this fall and winter.

Hospitalizations have increased 24 percent in a two-week period ending Aug. 12, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Wastewater monitoring suggests a recent rise in Covid infections in the West and Northeast. In communities across the United States, outbreaks have occurred in recent weeks at preschools, summer camps and office buildings.

Public health officials said that the latest increase in Covid hospitalizations is still relatively small and that the vast majority of the sick are experiencing mild symptoms comparable to a cold or the flu. And most Americans, more than three months after the Biden administration allowed the 2020 declaration calling the coronavirus a public health emergency to expire, have shown little willingness to return to the days of frequent testing, mask wearing and isolation.'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/28/us/covid-cases-hospitalizations.html

((Had an angry message from daughter, upset about dc area husband/deputy sheriff's recent re-assignment, so thought I'd share here.))

[John1956PA]

1. Sorry about your daughter's distress.

I hope that things work out.

[elleng]

2. Thanks.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. This long drawn out Covid thing has me thinking.

The good thing about the 1918 Flu epidemic was that people got it and died (lots and lots), got it and recovered (a reasonable number) or didn't get it at all (most people).

Covid has us dealing with Long Covid, and we're still too early into the Covid Era to know how that will play out. Will it permanently impair a significant portion of the population? We already know that the vaccine doesn't prevent getting it, although the vaccine seems to greatly mitigate severity and death.

The history of this planet can be considered as a history of disease. We are the descendants of billions and billions of hominids (and even more billions of other ancestral mammals) who survived diseases. I'm sometimes astonished that any of us ever get sick. But we do. Vulnerability will always be present.

For what it's worth, I haven't gotten Covid so far. The initial vaccination, one booster, and I keep on meaning to get a second booster. I do sort of fall back on being the very healthiest person I know. Never get sick. Don't get a flu shot -- although I would never try to convince anyone else not to get one -- and last got flu in about 1973. Just turned 75, and I might well change my mind about flu shots in the future.

[elleng]

4. My grandmother, whom I didn't meet, died as aa result of the 1918 flu epidemic,

leaving my father (youngest of 5 kids) and grandfather.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

5. Yes, So many stories like that.

I am not aware of any of my ancestors who died then, but it's possible some did, and I just never learned about it.

My own mother was born in 1916, my father in 1913, and their collective parents all lived a decent long time, well after 1918.