We’re seeing another uptick in Covid numbers – a reminder that this deadly virus hasn’t gone away (no matter how little we’re hearing about it recently).

Wastewater surveillance indicates an increase in the virus’s prevalence. 

The amount of Covid shed into the wastewater has doubled in the previous month, the largest uptick we’ve seen since last winter. We’ve also seen a doubling of emergency room diagnosis. Deaths have not increased, though hospitalizations are up 10%, and mainly affecting the elderly population. 

“Yeah, you know, the CDC says all the metrics suggest that the virus is still out there and just hasn’t given up the fight. The amount of virus being detected in wastewater, the percentage of people testing positive and the number of people going to emergency rooms because of COVID all started creeping back up at the beginning of July. And in the past week, Dr. Brendan Jackson, the CDC’s COVID-19 incident manager, says officials spotted a key bellwether,” reports Rob Stein of NPR.

Speaking with NPR, Dr. Brendan Jackson, the CDC’s COVID-19 Incident Manager says, “After roughly six, seven months of steady declines, things are starting to tick back up again.”

The increases started in early July, Dr. Jackson continues. And the spread seems to be most prevalent in the Southeast US. 

However, the numbers are lower this summer than they have been in the last three. 

Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins states, “It’s like when meteorologists are watching a storm forming offshore and they’re not sure if it will pick up steam yet, or if it will even turn towards the mainland, but they see the conditions are there and are watching closely.” She went on to say, “I do see some early signs that we are heading into another wave. Of course, we don’t know what lies ahead. So it may yet peter out.”