Covid-19 is still not behind us. The epidemic continues to affect people, in North America and Europe, even if contaminations are lower than in recent years. According to a bulletin from Public Health France dated Thursday May 23, visits to emergency departments for suspected Covid-19 in France “were up slightly for the 5th consecutive week (+ 8% all ages) but remained at a lower level than in previous years”.
In a previous report, dated May 14, Public Health France mentioned an upsurge in cases “observed for several weeks”, reporting an increase in visits to emergency departments for suspected Covid-19, particularly among those under 15 ( +20%) and those aged 15 and over (+28%). “The increase is mainly marked among those aged 75 and over (+46%),” noted Public Health France. Furthermore, as a journalist points out from the Parisian on the social network“viral circulation in wastewater is increasing for the fifth consecutive week nationally”.
The “FLiRT” variant is gaining ground
A variant, called “FLiRT”, is being closely monitored by scientists. Very contagious, it is circulating in the United States and Europe and is raising fears of a new wave of contamination this summer. The Omicron KP.2 variant, a sublineage of JN.1 which is part of the “FLiRT” variants, has become the dominant strain in the United States, where it represented 28.2% of contaminations at the beginning of May, compared to 3.8%. % at the end of March, according to the Centers for Disaster Control and Prevention (CDC). However, medical activity linked to Covid-19 is currently low on a national scale, said the CDC on Friday May 24. The number of Americans dying from Covid-19 is less than half what it was a year ago, with the death toll at around 2,000 in April.
In Europe, the “FLiRt” variant is already appearing in 14 countries including Spain, particularly in Catalonia. It is not very present in France at this stage. In Asia and Oceania, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand are “experiencing increased infection rates due to this variant”, indicated on Dr. Eric Topol, executive vice president of the American biomedical research center Scripps Research.
Taylor Swift concerts, clusters?
This variant could even spread more quickly in France and Europe in the coming weeks, particularly thanks to Taylor Swift’s concerts, planned throughout the summer. Dozens or even hundreds of fans of the American mega-star reported on social networks that they fell ill after attending one of the singer’s shows lasting more than three hours in Paris, from May 9 to 12. The four concerts at La Défense Arena, which marked the start of his European tour “The Eras Tour”, brought together 180,000 people, according to figures communicated by the venue to AFP.
However, it will be difficult to precisely quantify the number of Covid-19 contaminations. In the United States, the Biden administration and the CDC no longer talk much about this virus, noted the Washington Post, with the exception of sporadic updates on data and variant tracking. Last April, hospitals stopped reporting confirmed Covid-19 cases, ending the most commonly cited metric for measuring the toll of the virus. As in France, the CDC still tracks levels of coronavirus detected in wastewater and discloses the percentage of emergency room visits with a diagnosed case of Covid-19. “We are moving forward somewhat blindly now,” notes to the American daily Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.
However, it is not said that Covid-19 spoils (too much) the summer in the countries of the northern hemisphere. Quoted by the Time MagazineDr Eric Topol, explains that “while it is still too early to tell […] KP.2 and its relatives will probably cause an increase in the number of cases, but (my) intuition is that it will not be a big wave.”