US COVID-19 hospitalizations increased in July

COVID-19 hospitalizations and emergency room visits have risen slightly in the United States this summer, but they are still far below previous years, figures show.

The number of hospital admissions during the week ending July 22 rose 12.1 percent from the previous week from 7,165 to 8,035, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed. Between July 9 and 15, there was a 10.3 percent rise. Most of the hospitalizations were among older people.

Last month, emergency room visits for COVID-19 rose, so too did the number of people who tested positive for the coronavirus. Some counties in Nebraska, Arizona and Kansas showed hospitalizations were at moderate levels.

In the last week of July, the number of people who visited the ER with COVID-19 rose 17.4 percent, compared with a week earlier, according to the CDC. The areas that saw the highest increases were the Southeast and Northeast.

But CDC data shows that the number of hospitalizations and cases is not as bad as they were in previous years. At the peak of the Omicron variant in January 2022, there were more than 150,670 people hospitalized, ABC News reported. Additionally, hospitalizations had been relatively low for the first half of this year.

It is not entirely clear how many people in the US have COVID-19, as most health authorities have stopped reporting and monitoring cases. The CDC issued its final and 97th COVID-19 data tracker review in May.

The changes to how cases are reported came after President Joe Biden declared an end to the federal COVID-19 public health emergency in May. It meant that states no longer had to report how many residents contracted the virus.

Summertime uptick

At the beginning of July, there were 494 COVID-19 deaths — the lowest number of deaths from the virus since the start of the pandemic in 2020. On June 24, there were 549 deaths from COVID-19.

During the past few years, the summertime has produced an uptick in hospitalizations and cases. In previous years, the rise was followed by new waves of the virus, spurred by the Omicron and Delta variants.

At least 40 percent of all new cases are being attributed to the XBB.1.5 subvariant. A booster to fight it will be released in the fall. Pfizer expects its version of the booster to be approved by the end of August, NBC reported.

Dr William Schaffner, professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, advised that some people must continue to take precautions to boost their immune system, including staying up to date on vaccines and wearing a mask if needed.