Covid-19 cases are marking in the United States when children return to school and the country prepares to enter the coldest months of the weather.
For the week ending on August 9, the Covid hospitalization rate was 1.7 percent, double the rate of two months ago, according to Data from Disease Control and Prevention Centers.
In addition, for the week that ended on August 23, 11.2% of the weekly tests were positive for COVID, compared to 3.3% in the previous two months, CDC data shows.
Despite the increases, the metrics remain much lower than in previous years.
The hospitalization rates are approximately three times lower than at the same time last year and the percentage of weekly tests that come positive in the package is approximately twice lower compared to the same period last year.
In addition, in the last two months, approximately 200 Americans have been dying of Covid every week, according to CDC data.
There has been confusion about who can receive a Covid vaccine after the food and medication administration approved updated versions of those shots for those over 65 years of age and younger Americans who have a high risk of serious diseases. Federal Health officials have insisted that anyone who wants the shot can receive it.
On March 10, 2025, a positive Covid Home test in San Anselmo, California, is shown.
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CDC data show The positivity of the test has increased above 10% in much of the southwest and western United States when children go to class.
“When the dust sits, I hope it is not as bad as last year … but that still means that some people get sick,” a medical professor and a specialist in infectious diseases at the University of California, San Francisco, told ABC News. “Less people are being hospitalized, speaking proportionally, but some people are still being hospitalized.”
“The reason we are seeing the increase is because of the usual factors of more than six months, since many people got Covid [and] New variants, “he continued.
From the week ending on August 30, XFG, a branch of the OMICRON variant, is the dominant variant in the USA., Represents an estimate of 78% of the new Covid cases.
Meanwhile, nb.1.8.1 and LP.8.1, also omicrons of variants branches, constitute 14% and 3% of the new cases of Covid estimated in the US. UU., Data from the CDC show.
Dr. William Schaffner, professor of preventive medicine and medicine at the University of Vanderbilt Medicine, told ABC News that, because the circulating variants are currently members of this OMICRON family, there are no important mutations that make the virus more transmissible or more infectious.
“You can think of everyone as cousins,” he said. “Now these cousins share a couple of characteristics, one is that they seem to be quite contagious and are quite able to produce a slight disease.
Schaffner continued: “Fortunately, vaccines that this fall will be available … They should provide reasonable protection against serious diseases caused by these variants.”
In Press releasePfizer-Bionntech said that his COVID 2025-2026 vaccine will go to LP.8.1 sublinage in line with the orientation of the FDA to match the circulating strains more closely.
It is not clear how Covid vaccines will be implemented in the US.
Pfizer-Bionntech Covid-19 (L) and modern COVID-19 vaccines are in boxes at the Borinquen Medical Care Center on May 29, 2025 in Miami, Florida.
Joe Raedle/Getty images
In 34 states, Americans can receive the Covid vaccine in a CVS pharmacy. In 13 states and in Washington, DC, Americans can be vaccinated, depending on age, with a recipe. In three states, Massachusetts, Nevada and New Mexico, the Covid vaccine is not offered.
Chin-Hong said he is worried about the low vaccination rates as the country goes to the respiratory virus season during autumn and winter months.
“As vaccination rates decrease, both from people’s desire and structural barriers that are being presented by the federal government, it means that fewer people go to vaccines, even if people wanted to,” he said. “I worry that … I can mean that we would have some hospitalizations and deaths that we would not have normally seen if there was a simpler rule around vaccines.”
Schaffner said that those who can receive the Covid vaccine should do so, together with the annual influenza vaccine, and advised those with serious risk risk factors that are more cautious.
“You can get your mask and put it when you go indoors in crowded environments,” he said. “And if you really worry, as I like to say, make a social distancing. Transmit the movie instead of going to the movie.”
ABC News’ Youri Benadjaoud and Cheyenne Haslett contributed to this report.
