Summer Plans: During the summer months, I am on my off-season schedule:
- For paid subscribers, I’ll combine weekly updates into a single report. These updates are less detailed compared to my winter report.
- Free subscribers will continue to receive occasional essays and posts during the summer months, but I won’t be posting as often.
- In the fall, I will return to sending out a full-length, free national version of Outbreak Outlook. Paid subscribers will receive region-specific editions with more local data.
ILI
Influenza activity remains minimal, with 1.5% of all outpatient visits nationally due to influenza-like illness. Hospitalizations remain near-zero at 0.1 hospitalizations per 100,000 individuals. As we near the fall, this will start to change, but I am enjoying the break while it lasts.
COVID-19
The summer wave continues. Wastewater activity is high nationally and increased again this past week; it is at levels last seen in January of this year.
Emergency department visits have also increased yet again this past week and now account for 2.2% of all ED visits. This is close to the 2.5% peak of last summer’s wave. Most of the country reported moderate (+10-19%) or substantial (>20%) increases in ED visits this past week.
While hospitalizations declined slightly this past week to 2.8 hospitalizations per 100,000 population, this has limited usefulness as a proxy for severity nationwide, given that we are only receiving hospitalization data from a small number of states and the Covid-19 picture is quite different from state-to-state at the moment.