August, 2023: Covid Is, Once Again, On The Rise – In A New, Slow Summer Surge

Covid Rates Beginning To Rise In Parts Of The Country 

There's a new Covid in town, and in August, 2023, it's beginning to throw its weight around. In New York City, August Covid cases have begun to spike. It's not as bad as it was; it's a small spike. But it's a clear rise, especially in some parts of the nation. In New York City, for example, Covid went up by 55% recently, and Covid hospital admissions in the big eastern city went up by 22%.

The new variant, called EG.5 (or "Eris") is now the dominant strain of Covid, and causes around 17% of cases around the nation, say medical officials. 

To keep track of Covid in cities, health departments are monitoring "wastewater" in the city. The virus of infected people remains in their feces. When city toilets are flushed, the wastewater can be checked. 

Covid shows up in the sewage. This is one of the major ways, at this time when people are doing all their own tests and basic data systems on Covid have been dismantled, to see what is happening. The other way is through hospital admissions. 

In San Francisco, in late July 2023, Covid began to show higher levels of the disease. It wasn't as bad as this past March in San Francisco, but it wasn't that good; the July rates rivaled San Francisco's February 2023 and mid-May 2023 wastewater Covid presence. 

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In general, hospital admissions (one of the few ways we can see what is happening with Covid at this time, since comprehensive tracking has stopped) showed that there were 8,000 U.S. Covid hospital admissions for the week ending July 22nd, said the New York Post. This was a rise of 12% over the previous week. 

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According to the New York Times' Covid-tracking system, Alaska is running "flat" on Covid hospitalization cases right now. That doesn't mean you can't get it. Around four people are going into the hospital every day with Covid in Alaska, says the New York Times. 

Along the highways, and in Anchorage, over the past two weeks a larger number of people (especially older people, who are far more likely to either die or have serious symptoms) have resumed wearing masks in stores and businesses. 

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The New York Times, using Alaska state data,  last updated its overall Alaska figures in late March, 2023 – almost 5 months ago. In March, Alaskan cases were running at 71 per day, and there had been 308,893 reported Alaska cases of Covid at that time, and 1,438 reported deaths. 

(The Alaska population is currently listed at around 700,000 people. The Anchorage population is around 300,000. This means that the number of people who had Covid during the pandemic in Alaska would fill the entire city of Anchorage.) 

The highest month for average cases in Alaska listed in the data was January, 2022. The highest death month was November, 2021.