As sweltering temperatures push Marylanders indoors, public health officials are keeping a wary eye on COVID-19 hospitalizations. The state, in the grips of a summer COVID surge, is reporting an increase in cases driven by a highly contagious new Omicron offshoot. Recent health data indicate that Maryland hospitals are currently treating 119 COVID-positive patients, up from 70 a month ago, according to CBS News Baltimore.
While hospitalizations can be easily tracked, less testing among the general population is making it harder to fully gauge the outbreak. Dr. Andrew Pekosz of the Johns Family Bloomberg School of Public Health expressed that concerns are mounting due to the FLiRT variant of COVID-19, potentially signaling another wave of infections. Still, the summer spike in cases isn't catching experts off guard. "The virus is still here and it is going to wax and wane and just because people are not dying in droves doesn't mean that people aren't still dying," Dr. Miriam Alexander with LifeBridge Health stated, as per CBS News Baltimore, urging precaution amidst the rise in cases.
Contributing to the spread is the current heat wave, which has shoved more people inside, possibly to increasingly share recirculated air and encounter the virus. "People are turning on fans; they’re air conditioning at fairly high levels. Sometimes those air flows generated by fans and by air conditioners are not ideal for limiting respiratory virus transmission," Pekosz added, as detailed by WMAR-2 News. This indoor crowding, coupled with a more transmissible COVID variant, could drive case numbers even higher.
The White House brought a renewed national focus to the pandemic after announcing President Joe Biden's positive COVID test. Despite this, Pekon immediately said that for most people, the severity of COVID-19 has diminished compared to previous years. However, for high-risk groups, the risk remains significant. "COVID-19 is still a serious disease to some parts of the population, and I think this is where all of us have to think about ways where we could collectively minimize the risk to that small but very vulnerable part of our population," Pekosz said, per WMAR-2 News.
