Dr. Sharon Nachman: Increase in summer COVID hospitalizations does not bode well for the winter
NEW YORK - If you're hearing more people coughing, or are feeling under the weather yourself, it might not be a summer cold.
COVID-19 is making another comeback.
Weekly COVID-19 hospitalizations are up by more than 10% across the country. It's the largest percent increase since last December.
That's according to data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
So how concerned should you be about this summer surge?
Dr. Sharon Nachman, chief of pediatric infectious diseases at Stony Brook Children's Hospital, stopped by with some answers. She said the increase does not bode well for the winter.
"Every summer, we look at how many cases of viral illness are occurring," Nachman said. "It tells us what we think the summer is like, but more importantly, what we think the winter is going to be like. So seeing this upsurge now tells us the winter may be a big problem, and we may see not only more COVID cases, but certainly flu and RSV occurring at the same time, and that does have us worried."
Nachman said the COVID surge should be of particular concern to patients who are at high risk for respiratory illnesses, or have other underlying conditions.
"We are not seeing the lethality of the COVID variants that we saw in the original surge. That's good news for all of us. But for those at high risk, it's still going to be a problem," she said.
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