Old American Covid-19 hotspots are the new hotspots

Public health officials and epidemiologists say the increasing caseload in many parts of the country can be attributed to a range of factors, including the spread of more transmissible variants; an increase in infections in younger, often unvaccinated people; relaxed prevention efforts and relaxed restrictions on indoor eating and masking; as well as pandemic fatigue.

A well-known pattern

After a sharp decline due to the deadly fall rise, newly reported Covid-19 cases have remained high across the US. But in some states, cases have re-emerged. They seem to follow a familiar pattern. When the cases reached their first peak in mid-April 2020, New Jersey, Michigan, Pennsylvania and New York led the way.

However, when the nation hit a new peak in late July, those four states were at lows as the pandemic center moved south and west. They rallied again in the winter, along with the rest of the US, and are now the driving force behind this year’s latest rise.

Michigan epidemiologists and public health authorities have pointed to school sports as a major source of covid-19 transmission. In addition, nationwide major outbreaks have been linked to the recent Easter and Spring break.

Increase in variants

The British variety is now the dominant variety in the US. The upper midwest, including Michigan and Minnesota where cases are elevated, has some of the largest known cases of the British variant. Cases of the species are also high in Tennessee and Florida. The variant has been reported in every state.

Regional versions of the virus, first discovered in New York and California, are also gaining ground. Like the British variant, these may be more transmissible than the earlier versions of the virus, researchers suspect.

The prevalence of more infectious variants initially discovered in South Africa and Brazil remains low in the US, but given the lack of widespread genetic sequencing, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cannot provide accurate incidence rates for all of these variants.

The Biden administration on Friday announced a $ 1 billion investment to expand genomic sequencing across the CDC, states and jurisdictions, as part of the $ 1.9 trillion Covid-19 aid package signed by law last month. The money will support Covid-19 sample collection, sequencing and data exchange to help identify mutations in the virus.

Younger people infected

Older patients have traditionally experienced more severe cases of Covid-19, with higher death rates and hospitalizations. Higher vaccination coverage in the elderly, who were given priority in vaccinations, is beginning to reshape that trend – possibly contributing to the increased proportion of severe cases in younger patients.

Recently, infections and hospitalizations in people under 55 have increased.

“Hospitals are seeing more and more younger adults – those in their 30s and 40s – being admitted with serious illness,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, recently at a press conference. “And so what we really want to do is scale up that vaccination more and more, so we can be in a place where we … have more vaccinations and really have fewer diseases circulating.”

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 25.4% of people in the US are fully vaccinated. About 50.4% of Americans ages 18 and older, and 39.5% of the total population, have received at least one dose of vaccine, the CDC data shows.

Newly reported cases were down from the day before, with 42,018 reports for Sunday after 52,373 reported for Saturday, according to the latest data gathered by Johns Hopkins University. The number of new cases recorded each day tends to be lower at the beginning of the week, as fewer people are tested and many states don’t report weekend data.

—Alberto Cervantes contributed to this article.