Looking around the classroom, students at Potomac Falls have noticed an increased amount of their peers out sick or wearing masks. Is it the flu or is it something more? On May 5, 2023, the Coronavirus pandemic was declared to be at an official end, but did it come back?
In late August of 2023, extreme, record breaking heat took over the country. And with it, a new wave of Covid-19, according to NPR.
Hospitalizations due to Covid have increased by 24 percent; this new wave’s symptoms being described similar to a cold or the flu. This rise of new Covid infections began in the West and Northeast, slowly spreading across theUnited States.
The CDC says to be prepared for the winter. Respiratory viruses appear every winter, the most common being the Influenza and the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) found in children. There is no evidence found to support the idea that vaccines won’t work, as stated by the World Health Organization (WHO). Due to existing vaccines and public knowledge of the virus, experts are saying this will be handled appropriately and efficiently.
Although hospitalizations have increased significantly, there are only 17,400 new admissions according to a recent story by NBC News. This is a 50 percent decrease in admissions compared to last year and just a fifth of the number in 2021. This trend also proves true in Covid death percentages. There were 600 deaths per week recorded in Aug 2023, a drastic difference to the 3,000 deaths per week in late Aug 2022, and 14,000 in 2021, as told by the CDC’s Covid-19 timeline.
Three variants have emerged. The omicron variant, first discovered in November 2021, gained global reign in March 2022. But as of August 2023, the direct descendants of omicron will be competing against each other, seeing that all other variants of the virus have faded away.
The WHO has the circulating variants of Covid in an official ranking: variants of concern (VOC), variants of interest (VOI), and variants under monitoring (VUM). As of Mar 15 2023, there are no longer any circulating VOCs and all VOIs and VUMs are the dwindling sub variants of omicron.
However, Covid is still to be taken seriously. Although omicron has been with us since Nov 26, 2021, it has quickly spread across the world since then. It started an abundance of Covid-19 cases in December 2021 and January 2022. By mid-March 2022, omicron became the dominant variant of the virus.
Over time, experts believe Covid will become very similar to the influenza, periodically resurfacing in the winter and fading away as warmer months roll in. Covid, much like other diseases, might not ever fade away, but the progress made since 2020 will continue to improve as years go by.