Rates of severe disease may be staying at relatively low levels, but experts agree that there are probably more infections than the current surveillance systems can capture.

“There is more transmission out there than what the surveillance data indicates,” said Janet Hamilton, executive director of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists. “And we should be paying attention to it, because we are starting to see an increase.”

Weekly hospital admissions have nearly doubled over the past month, including a 19% bump in the most recent week, CDC data shows. And a sample of laboratories participating in a federal surveillance program show that test positivity rates have tripled in the past two months.

There are some hopeful signs: Biobot data shows that wastewater levels may be starting to flatten, and relatively low hospitalization rates suggest that there may be a lower risk of severe disease for many.

  • pixxelkick@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    right through when fauci himself was advocating against public mask wearing

    It was specifically advocating against people who were stockpiling/hoarding disposable masks, which were in limited supply and needed far more by first responders, doctors, nurses, etc. Hospitals at that time literally were running out of masks.

    The CDC recommendation at the time was to use reusable cloth masks, which werent/arent as good most of the time, but way way better than nothing at all.

    It was a temporary recommendation as the economy was pivoting to bump up supply to compensate. The US proceeded to enlist a bunch of fabric companies to start producing more masks as fast as possible to compensate, so there was about a 2~3 week period where the public needed to prioritize.

    It’s unfortunate a lot of people have taken to misquoting this time period as “Dr Fauci said using masks was bad” or such, which is deeply misrepresenting the state of things.

    • HubertManne@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      yeah people don’t seem to get nuance. Ive seen folks complain about people with insufficient masks as being useless and its like. They are not useless and as a matter of fact there are diminishing returns on quality which is why I use a kn95 over an n95 and keep a gater around in case I went out not expecting to be near folks but stumble into needing one. Is it as good. No. Is it wwwaaayyy better than nothing. Yes.

    • downpunxx@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Bite me : https://www.newsweek.com/fauci-said-masks-not-really-effective-keeping-out-virus-email-reveals-1596703
      Fauci knew precisely what he was purposefully doing and what he was saying, and sided with trying to defend as many first responders/medical professionals as he could, which is completely understandable, but it’s a choice that was made by him, and the trolley question he answered at that time which he later revised to “for gods sake everyone should be wearing masks”, which anyone who was watching the people drop dead in Wuhan, already knew

    • blanketswithsmallpox@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      It’s unfortunate a lot of people have taken to misquoting this time period as “Dr Fauci said using masks was bad” or such, which is deeply misrepresenting the state of things.

      Let’s dispel once and for all with this fiction that he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows EXACTLY what he’s doing.