Across the Atlantic, the end of school holidays seems to rhyme with a resurgence of the Covid-19 epidemic. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), hospitalizations increased by 24% in mid-August, compared to the previous two weeks. However, this latest increase in Covid-related hospitalizations is still relatively small, explains the New York Times, adding that the vast majority of patients have mild symptoms comparable to a cold or the flu.
Separately, sewage monitoring suggests a recent increase in Covid-19 infections in the west and northeast of the country. Another indicator that suggests a recent increase in cases: testing. As of August 19 (latest figures available) nearly 13% tested positive. It should be noted that since the end of the health emergency in the country, i.e. on May 11, 2023, data crucial to understanding the spread and effects of Covid are less frequently, if not at all, reported by government sources.
“We are in almost the best situation since the start of the pandemic,” Michael T. Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told the American daily. “But we are caught in the very uncomfortable situation of having left the fog of pandemic war and trying to understand what the sunrise looks like on a normal post-Covid world.”
Closed schools
The resurgence of cases has also disrupted the start of the school year for many students. According to the TV channel ABC News, schools have been forced to close in recent days due to a high number of coronavirus cases among students and teachers. Two school districts in Kentucky declared on August 26 that they were closing their doors due to “widespread illness”, reports the chain.
In Texas too, schools are closing in the face of an increase in Covid-19 cases. In a letter, the Runge Independent School District in Texas told parents that schools would close from Aug. 22 to Aug. 29 due to the high number of coronavirus cases, the newspaper said. USA Today. In addition to schools, the virus continues to disrupt American society as a whole, points out the New York Times, citing the example of a Nashville City Council becoming a cluster. “It’s a stark reminder that the virus is once again taking hold in the community,” city council member Freddie O’Connell, who is himself infected with the virus, told the daily.
What are the risks in France?
In France too, the bad memory of the Covid-19 epidemic was recently recalled to many French people. After the Bayonne celebrations in particular, more than 70% of the tests carried out locally had been positive. Nationally, cases have also been on the increase for the past few weeks. Between the end of July and the beginning of August, Public Health France notes a “slight increase in the indicators”, although they remain “at low levels”.
Of the thirteen French regions, five of them concentrate the majority of confirmed cases of Covid: New Aquitaine, Occitanie, Ile-de-France, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur and Auvergne. -Rhône-Alpes. According to scientists, this new increase in cases in France is mainly driven by a variant of Omicron, nicknamed “Eris” (real name EG.5).
A new variant under surveillance
In addition, the World Health Organization and the American health authorities (CDC) announced on Friday August 18 that they are closely monitoring a new variant of the Covid-19 virus, even if “for the time being the potential impact of many mutations of BA.2.86 are unknown”. For now, no correlation has yet been established between the resurgence of cases and the appearance of this new variant. The international public health agency has decided to classify this new variant “in the category of variants under surveillance because of the very large number (more than 30) of mutations of the Spike gene that it carries”, she writes in her epidemiological bulletin dedicated to the Covid pandemic and broadcast overnight from Thursday to Friday.
If, since the beginning of May, the WHO no longer considers the pandemic a global health emergency, “the virus continues to circulate in all countries, continues to kill and continues to change”, underlined last week its director general Tedros Adhanom. Ghebreyesus. So far, this new variant has only been detected in Israel, Denmark, the United States and the United Kingdom.
Reached by L’Express in early August, Antoine Flahault, epidemiologist and director of the Global Health Institute at the Faculty of Medicine of Unige estimated that “there is every reason to think that the Covid-19 will return this fall and this winter in the northern hemisphere”. He explains: “It did not stop circulating in the southern hemisphere throughout our summer (their winter). It even caused a fairly strong resurgence in Japan in July, especially on the island of Okinawa.”