Global COVID-19 resurgence: rising cases from California to the Paris Olympics
California’s FLiRT-driven COVID surge continues at a staggering pace, with wastewater levels nearing the highest since 2022, reports a Kazinform News Agency correspondent, citing the Los Angeles Times.
With U.S. citizens and municipalities have become a less reliable source of data, experts with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have turned to the sewers to monitor the presence of infectious disease in our wastewater.
The results of those tests can provide an early warning system, according to the CDC, as trace amounts of the virus will register even before someone experiences symptoms. It takes about five to seven days for the flush of the toilet to generate results, the CDC says.
These readings have surpassed typical summer spikes and rival the past winter’s surge. As of August 10, COVID levels in sewage reached 84% of last winter’s peak, far exceeding the previous two summers.
Dr. Elizabeth Hudson, regional chief of infectious diseases at Kaiser Permanente Southern California notes the surge is unusually large and prolonged. Dr. Peter Chin-Hong from UC San Francisco adds that it’s surprising the numbers haven’t decreased.
New vaccines replacing the outdated ones will soon be available, targeting the latest Omicron variant. Meanwhile, test positivity rates in California are rising, with 14.7% of tests returning positive in mid-August, higher than last winter. The FLiRT subvariants, especially KP.3.1.1, are driving this surge, now making up 36.8% of COVID cases nationwide.
“It’s this confluence of a much more infectious variant on top of folks’ overall immunity having waned — either from natural or vaccine-induced immunity,” Hudson said. “It’s just kind of come [as] a perfect storm.”
This summer’s wave is shaping up to be particularly long-lasting. California has seen “high” or “very high” levels of coronavirus in its wastewater for the last 10 weeks. In the summer of 2022, California spent 16 weeks in either of those categories, and in the summer of 2023, the state recorded eight weeks with “high” viral wastewater levels.
Cases — though assuredly an undercount, as they don’t account for people who test at home, or not at all — are nevertheless climbing. There was an average of 484 COVID-19 cases a day for the week that ended Aug. 11 in L.A. County, up 35% over the last month. Last summer’s peak was 571 cases a day.
South Korea’s disease control agency, in their regard, reported that COVID-19 levels in wastewater nearly doubled in a week, following a summer surge in infections. The Korea Wastewater Surveillance program found virus concentrations at 47,640 copies per milliliter in mid-August, up from 24,602 the previous week. The data, gathered from 84 wastewater plants, helps track COVID-19 trends. Additionally, newly hospitalized COVID-19 patients rose to 1,359 in the second week of August, up from 878 the week before.
These increases were also mirrored in COVID-19 cases among Kazakhstani athletes who participated in the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
According to Dias Akhmetsharip, adviser to the Minister of Tourism and Sports of the Republic of Kazakhstan, some of Kazakhstani athletes and coaches who participated in the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris have tested positive for coronavirus.
“Three medalists and two coaches of our team have tested positive for the coronavirus. All three athletes are medalists from the 2024 Paris Olympics. They are currently isolated and receiving treatment. They are in the mild stage of disease. We wish them a speedy recovery. No cases of the virus have been identified among other members of the national team," Dias Akhmetsharip stated.
Recall that on August 14, the meeting of the Head of State, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, with the medalists of the Summer 2024 Olympic Games in Paris in Astana was canceled since several athletes and coaches were diagnosed with COVID-19.
