COVID positivity in California has continued to rise with each weekly update from the state's Department of Health. Now, the state has reached the second-highest positivity rate of any summer surge and is approaching a record high for this time of yr.
Testing data through July 22 showed that the proportion of positive COVID tests reached 13.8%, a rise of greater than two percentage points from the previous week.
Two years ago, COVID's seasonality – or lack thereof – was starting to turn into apparent, and California experienced a pointy spike in COVID cases over the summer. Headlines then warned of rising recent COVID infections, rising case counts, hospitalizations and deaths. At the height of that surge, positivity rates reached 16%. Now the seven-day average positivity rate is rapidly approaching that peak and shows no signs of slowing yet.
But rather a lot has modified previously two years, and the virus is now much less deadly than it was, even when it is not any less widespread.
The state not tracks lots of the metrics first used to measure COVID surges and lulls. Case counts not exist, COVID hospitalizations aren’t any longer tracked by the state health department, and while COVID deaths are still recorded on death certificates, it takes weeks for that data to be reported.
Sewage and positivity rates have turn into the very best ways to trace the rise and fall of virus prevalence locally, and each show that the Bay Area and California have been within the midst of a significant surge since early June.
Ozdalga has noticed a rise within the variety of patients with the virus in recent weeks. “There are many more patients with COVID,” he said, but “it remains the same pattern – patients are admitted with COVID, not because of COVID.”
And while the virus undoubtedly causes complications, especially in individuals with comorbidities, and still causes many deaths, Ozdalga believes that “the biggest risk” for a lot of those arriving with COVID is the mandatory isolation and additional precautions somewhat than the virus itself.
“Fortunately, it is no longer a life-threatening type of virus like it was in the early years,” Ozdalga said, but acknowledged that an influx of patients with respiratory viruses of any kind in the summertime is a brand new phenomenon within the age of COVID. “In that respect, it is unique.”
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