Stubborn Covid surges signal bleak winter - Politico

The risk to health systems across the country is further heightened because influenza and RSV are also on the rise.

Coronavirus cases are rising once again, disrupting classrooms, overwhelming hospitals and alarming public health officials — even in areas with high vaccination rates — who warn the country is headed for a holiday surge that could leave thousands dead.

Though nearly 70 percent of the country has had at least one shot and hospitalizations have fallen from their September highs, the news in many states remains grim and the trend lines portend a fresh wave in the coming weeks.

In Michigan, for example, 28 percent of hospitalizations and 24 percent of deaths, between Oct.

The latest Covid surge is particularly concerning to health officials because holiday travel is expected to exacerbate the problem as it did last year when Thanksgiving and Christmas gatherings fueled a record number of new infections and led to more than 100,000 deaths in January.

“I do think we will see more deaths than we are currently seeing,” said Eric Toner, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

The risk to health systems across the country is further heightened because influenza and RSV, two other seasonal respiratory viruses that can land people in the hospital, are also on the rise — adding pressure to a health care workforce that is short staffed and experiencing unprecedented turnover after 20 months of battling the pandemic.

The increasing Covid-related hospitalizations and deaths are still primarily among the unvaccinated but even places with the highest immunization rates are seeing spikes in cases.

Vermont, which has nearly three-quarters of its population vaccinated, has seen new infections jump 50 percent and hospitalizations are near all-time highs.

Many public health experts maintain that the vaccines and therapies will prevent the country from revisiting the days with 3,000 deaths and 250,000 new infections but substantial increases in deaths that are largely preventable is a scenario still very much on the table.

That’s particularly concerning to public health officials ahead of Thanksgiving, when college students are apt to visit their grandparents and people with underlying conditions see friends and family