COVID cases are on a downward trend. How long will this last?
COVID-19 cases continue to fall throughout the country after a summer wave peaked in early August, surveillance data shows.
The percentage of positive COVID-19 tests dropped from 17.8% the week of Aug. 10 to 14.9% the week of Sept. 7, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Walgreens’s national respiratory disease tracker showed a similar trend.
Summer travel for vacations and gatherings typically drives a large wave of COVID-19 cases, said Emily Smith, an infectious diseases and epidemiology expert at GW Milken Institute of Public Health.
But this summer's wave “was a particularly big one,” she said.
“It’s very hard to compare year over year because the way we track cases is different,” said Smith, who is also an associate professor of global health. “But both case numbers and wastewater (data) … have left me feeling like this was probably one of the biggest waves we’ve had.”
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Although the country appears to be riding a downward COVID-19 trend, wastewater surveillance shows concentration levels of the virus remain high across the country, according to data from WastewaterSCAN, a network run by Stanford and Emory University that monitors sewage for signs of diseases.
“SARS-CoV-2 has been detected in 99.8% of samples over the last 21 days,” said Amanda Bidwell, a WastewaterSCAN team member. “Currently, the national aggregated wastewater concentrations for (the virus) is slightly higher than where it was this time last year.”
This summer wave also peaked later compared with last year, Smith said. Because protection from prior infection typically lasts about three months, a delayed summer surge could also mean a later winter wave. Cases may start to ramp up again around December, she said, depending on vaccination rates and circulating variants.
That gives more time for Americans to prepare for the respiratory virus season by ordering free tests from COVIDtests.gov, which will be available by the end of the month, and getting the updated vaccine. Pfizer-BioNTech's and Moderna's messenger-RNA vaccines target the KP.2 variant, while Novavax's protein-based shot targets the JN.1 lineage.
The JN lineage has almost disappeared, accounting for .2% or less of cases nationwide. As of Wednesday, CDC data shows, KP.3.1.1 is the most dominant circulating variant, making up about 57% of cases. Public health experts are also tracking the newly discovered XEC variant, a hybrid strain of the KS.1.1 and KP.3.3 variants, which is steadily increasing in Europe.
“We’re finding cases in the U.S., and it’s growing at a similar rate over the (KP.3) variants,” Smith said. “That might be the next one to take off.”
Health officials expect current treatments for COVID-19, including the antiviral Paxlovid, and the updated vaccine will continue to protect people from the new variants.
It’s too early to know how many Americans have gotten shots since the new vaccine was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in August. But a survey published Wednesday by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases shows that less than a third of Americans say they will “definitely get” an updated shot this year.
If the survey’s prediction proves true, it would be slightly higher than last year’s uptake. Only 22.5% of adults and 14% of children received the 2023-2024 updated COVID-19 vaccine, according to the American Medical Association.
The new survey also found about 45% of Americans said they would not get vaccinated and 16% said they were unsure. Only half of Americans who are at higher risk of COVID-related complications say they plan to get the updated shot.
Among those who didn’t want to get vaccinated, the top reasons cited were concerns about side effects and a general lack of trust in vaccines.
“We have a lot more work to do as public health professionals to make it easier to get vaccinated and make sure people can appreciate why this could be helpful to them and their lives,” Smith said.
Adrianna Rodriguez can be reached at adrodriguez@usatoday.com.