People's CDC COVID-19 Weather Report

Week of November 14, 2022

Nov 14, 2022

The Weather: Transmission levels continue to increase, with 84.71% of the population currently living in areas with substantial or higher transmission.

Map and table show COVID transmission levels by US county as of 11/10/22. Low to Moderate transmission levels are pale yellow, Substantial is orange, High is red, Very High is brown, and Extremely High is black. Most of the Northeast and Midwest are red; CA, TX, and the Gulf Coast are mostly pale, the Southwest has more red than previous weeks; and the Plains states have a mix of colors including several counties that are black or brown. Text reads: 84.71 percent of the US population lives in an area with substantial or higher transmission. A Transmission Level table shows 1.18 percent of counties (0.21 percent by population) as Extremely High, 2.93 percent of the counties (3.05 percent by population) as Very High, 41.09 percent of counties (40.22 percent by population) as High, 27.63 percent of counties (41.23 percent by population) as Substantial, and 26.58 percent of counties (15.29 percent by population) as Low to Moderate. The People's CDC created the graphic from CDC data.

On Variants: The variant picture continues to shift, with BA.5 proportions continuing to drop and BA.5 subvariants BQ.1.1 and BQ.1 continuing to rise.

BA.5 now represents only 29.7% of cases; in contrast, BQ1.1 and BQ.1 now represent a combined 44.2%, up from just 32.6% last week.

Stacked bar chart with weeks on the x-axis shows weeks from 8/13/2022 through 11/12/2022 and y-axis as percent viral lineage among infections. The most recent 3 weeks are labeled as Nowcast projections. BA5 (teal) is the most common lineage overall, though it has receded over time. From its peak around 8/20 of about 86 percent, it has receded to about 30 percent at present. BQ1 (forest green) and BQ1.1 (olive) increased from barely-visible proportions in August to current estimates of 20.1 and 24.1 percent, making them 2nd and 3rd most common variants this week. BF7(lime green), barely present at the beginning of August, is now 4th this week, remaining steady at around 8 percent the last 2 weeks, while BA4.6 (blue) dropped from 9.5 percent to 5.5 percent, after slowly increasing from about 3 percent in July to about 11 percent in mid-September after which it started decreasing. — Graphic source: **CDC COVID Data Tracker: Variant Proportions**

Wastewater Monitoring: After a slight dip last week, national wastewater levels have begun to increase once again.

Title reads Covid-19 Wastewater Monitoring in the US. Top text says Data last updated November 10, 2022 from samples collected during the week of November 7. Graph shows weekly wastewater viral concentration and daily clinical cases since the beginning of the pandemic and ending on November 9, 2022. A dark blue line represents viral concentration in copies per milliliter of sewage, and a light blue line represents clinical cases daily average. Since about March 2022, the light blue case line is somewhat erratic and relatively plateaued at well less than 100K. Over the same time, the dark blue wastewater line is persistently higher. It peaks above 1,000 copies/mL in late July 2022 and was decreasing until this week, where a slight increase is now noted, from 518 copies/mL on November 2 to 534 copies/mL on November 9. Bottom text reads Source: Wastewater data from Biobot Analytics, Inc; Clinical data from USAFacts. — Graphic source: **Biobot Analytics**

Volunteers with the People’s CDC have compiled a new resource, “Wastewater Data FAQs,” which explains what it is, why it’s important, where it comes from, and the benefits and drawbacks of its use.

Vaccinations: New data from Pfizer on their bivalent Covid vaccine suggests their updated vaccine may be more protective against more recent Omicron subvariants than the original formula.

While vaccine hesitancy is often attributed to historical wrongs, medical racism is a persistent issue. For example, Black Americans who report having bad interactions with racist healthcare workers are more likely to be skeptical of COVID vaccines.

If you’re a healthcare worker, what are you doing to ensure you and your colleagues do not contribute to bad experiences faced by Black patients engaging with the medical system?

Hospitalizations: Following a relative plateau over the past several weeks, hospitalizations have also begun to rise again.

A line chart representing new admissions of patients to hospitals with confirmed COVID in the United States. The chart has New Admissions per 100,000 Population on its y axis and labels of January 2021 to July 2022 on its x axis. New admissions peak at about 5 per 100,000 in January 2021 and 6.5 per 100,000 in January 2022, with smaller peaks happening in August 2021 (about 3.7 per 100,000) and July 2022 (about 2 per 100,000). The line gradually decreases after the July 2022 minor peak to about 1 per 100,000 at the right most point. The latest week’s data show the beginnings of a slight uptick. — Graphic source: **CDC COVID Data Tracker: New Hospital Admissions**

Infants, who are ineligible for vaccination, have high COVID–associated hospitalization rates compared to other children. Pregnant people should stay up to date with COVID vaccination & nonpharmaceutical measures should be used to help protect infants.

Deaths: Between November 2 and November 8, 2,344 people died of COVID nationally. Over 245,000 people have died of COVID in the US this year so far.

A preprint comparing mortality among youth 0-19 in 2019 to the past year found COVID among the top 10 leading causes of death. This directly refutes those who argue against protections for young people.

COVID ranked 8th among all causes, 5th in disease-related causes (excluding accidents, assault and suicide), and 1st in deaths caused by infectious or respiratory diseases for youth 0-19 years old.

On Long COVID: A German study found children and adolescents had higher long-term demand for health care services after COVID infection, meaning that Long COVID cannot be dismissed among children and adolescents.

A VA study found that COVID reinfection contributed additional risks of death, hospitalization, as well as pulmonary, cardiovascular, hematological, diabetes, gastrointestinal, kidney, mental health, musculoskeletal, and neurological disorders.

The risks of reinfection were evident regardless of vaccination status. The analysis did not assess severity of reinfection vs initial infection, but underlined that for people who already had a 1st infection, prevention of reinfection may protect from additional health risks.

The authors conclude with a position that mirrors that of @PeoplesCDC, stating that “Prevention of infection and reinfection with COVID should continue to be the goal of public health policy.”

A mouse model found cognitive deficits after COVID infection, suggesting the need for further study. The study showed similarities with changes in human neurodegenerative diseases which may suggest paths toward accurate diagnoses and treatments.

Forecast: A new preprint provides evidence that Paxlovid lowers the risk of Long COVID by around 25%.

@EricTopol provides an excellent breakdown of this new work on his blog, noting that more extensive research and replication is needed before determining whether Paxlovid is truly preventative.

The false notion of “immunity debt” continues to gain steam, despite loads of evidence that illnesses such as RSV and flu are likely due to post COVID immunity deficiencies.

Take Action: The recent elections have highlighted the importance of fighting for accessible voting.

Universal masking policies in schools work to prevent COVID transmission; we need to fight for universal masking in schools.

Fighting for accessible schools means preventing us from worrying we’ll be punished for caring about the health of ourselves, our children, and our neighbors.

Take action for #WorldAIDSDay on Dec 1st. Demand @POTUS Biden & Congress take urgent action to address colliding global+domestic pandemics: #HIV, #LongCOVID, COVID, Ebola, cholera,TB, and more.

Here is a thread with a YouTube video explaining how COVID works as a refresher before the holiday season.

This Petition to Pfizer demands expanding access to Paxlovid in Latin America. Viewers can hit the “translate to English” option in order to sign the petition.

Notes: 1) The numbers in this report were current as of 11/11. The CDC updates data frequently as it receives refreshed information. Today’s numbers may be slightly different from the data here. 2) Check out the links throughout & see our website for more! https://peoplescdc.org.