Hospitalizations have been on the decline for weeks now, although the CDC says COVID is a still a ‘public health threat.’
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) posted updated data showing that COVID-19 hospital admissions are continuing to decline across the United States after it showed an uptick in cases over the summer.
As of the week ending Sept. 30, hospitalizations are down by 6 percent, emergency department visits are down by 14.5 percent, and cases are down by 1.2 percent, according to the CDC. Deaths are up by 3.8 percent, but health officials have long said that deaths usually lag behind hospitalizations and case numbers.
For several weeks now, hospital admissions have been declining on a weekly basis. In July, COVID-19 hospitalizations, however, had been on the rise—although CDC historical data suggest that they were relatively low compared with previous years.
The EG.5 variant, which has been dubbed Eris, has accounted for about 24.5 percent of all COVID-19 cases, according to the federal health agency’s variant tracker. FL.1.5.1, known as Fornax, is estimated to be responsible for about 13.7 percent of infections, the CDC figures show.
During the late summer and during a rise in hospitalizations, some health officials suggested that it doesn’t appear to be as bad as previous increases of the virus.
“Looking at that graph [of] hospitalizations, even though it’s on an upward trend, that’s still lower than it was last year at this time,” Dr. John Segreti, an epidemiologist and the medical director of infection control and prevention at Chicago’s Rush University Medical Center, told ABC News at the time. “The fact that the numbers are going up fairly slowly, I think is a good sign.”
Dr. Shira Doron, chief infection control officer for Tufts Medicine, said that the recent “upswing is not a surge; it’s not even a wave.” The doctor added: “What we’re seeing is a very gradual and small upward trajectory of cases and hospitalizations, without deaths really going along, which is great news.”
