“You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout,” but the world is seeing the largest increase in new SARS-CoV-2 infections in some time. Researchers are observing noticeably higher levels of the virus in wastewater, and we are welcoming a brand new subvariant, JN.1, to the omicron family.
The JN.1 sublineage is causing some concern from scientists, doctors, and Covid researchers such as myself.
As observant readers of Morning News Brief may have noticed, the figures being reported across the world – including those from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – are rising, 1.2% in the most recent week for which data is available, in lockstep with emergency room visits and hospitalizations where the diagnosis code reads Covid. Those are up approximately 10% each.
The data public-health officials understate what is actually happening. The flip side to the benefit of having easily accessible, easy-to-use at-home Covid tests is that most positive cases go unreported but the elevated levels of the virus detected in wastewater, which serves as our canary in the Covid coal mine, have shown that U.S. levels have increased steadily since October.
Given the low uptake on the new 2023 Covid vaccine, I would urge people to take precautions and work with the assumption that everyone is positive for SARS-CoV-2 unless proven otherwise. This means masking, especially in crowded environments such as airports and airplanes, social distancing, and avoiding small intimate superspreader gatherings.
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