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(NEXSTAR) – Warning signs that could signal a rise in COVID infections are appearing in parts of the U.S. Wastewater testing, which can help detect the spread of a COVID in a community, has shown a significant uptick of the virus in several states. Testing sites in Montana and Florida are reporting “very high” levels of COVID, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports. Levels are “high” in wastewater across Alaska, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland and New Mexico. Emergency room visits related to COVID-19 are also on the rise, the CDC says, spiking 12.6% in one week. The biggest...

A new COVID-19 variant called KP.3 has surged to dominance in the United States, according to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).1 As of June 8, KP.3 accounted for 25% of cases, per the CDC. The variant has surpassed the previous dominant variant, KP.2, which now makes up about 22% of cases. Both have knocked down JN.1, the top strain circulating this past winter. With SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, mutating consistently, it’s natural to be concerned each time a new variant rises to prominence. Here’s what you need to know about KP.3, including...

If you or any of your friends have gotten sick with COVID-19 recently, you’re not the only ones: Case rates are rising in the Bay Area and the proof is in the pipes. According to the California Department of Public Health, the region now has the most viral wastewater than anywhere else in California. In an email to SFGATE, Amanda Bidwell, a wastewater researcher and data analyst at Stanford, said that over the past 21 days “consistently high concentrations” of SARS-CoV-2 have been detected in wastewater samples collected across San Francisco. “Currently we are seeing some of the highest concentrations...

California’s COVID numbers are on the rise thanks, in part, to new subvariants, suggesting an earlier-than-normal start to the summer season.The percentage of COVID tests coming back with positive results in the state rose to 5.3% for the week that ended June 3, up from 2.2% the month before. The numbers are still relatively low — last summer’s peak positive test rate was 13.1% — but the increases have the attention of doctors and health officials as the summer travel season begins.“Numbers are definitely going up,” said Dr. Elizabeth Hudson, regional chief of infectious disease at Kaiser Permanente Southern California....

New so-called "FLiRT" COVID-19 variants have quickly become the most dominant in the United States, and authorities are monitoring their rise as summer approaches. According to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one of the two members of the “FLiRT” group, KP.2, is now No. 1 among strains nationally, accounting for about 24.9 of all current infections. The JN.1 strain had been dominant in the US before the emergence of KP.2. Both variants are offshoots of the highly contagious Omicron strain. The No. 4 variant in the US, KP.1.1, which makes up 7.5 percent...

A troubling new COVID subvariant is on the rise just in time for the holidays, officials have warned. The JN.1 subvariant – when stems of the omicron variant that surged in early 2022 – is “rapidly increasing globally,” the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Tuesday. JN.1 is now causing about 20 percent of new coronavirus infections in the US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated. The variant evolved from BA.2.86, a descendent of the omicron variant that made headlines over the summer when scientists worried that it might mutate beyond the capacity of vaccines and antibodies, CNN...

Nearly 1 in 10 new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. are from the BA.2.86 variant, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated Monday, nearly triple what the agency estimated the highly mutated variant's prevalence was two weeks ago. Among the handful of regions with enough specimens reported from testing laboratories, BA.2.86's prevalence is largest in the Northeast: 13.1% of cases in the New York and New Jersey region are blamed on the strain. Monday's figures mark the first time BA.2.86's prevalence has surged enough to be listed as a standalone variant on the CDC's estimates. Scientists first warned of...

97 HOUSTON – COVID-19 is continuing to make its presence known across the world as it adapts and evolves into a new strand. American Medical Association Vice President of Science, Medicine and Public Health, Andrea Garcia, JD, MPH, said HV.1 has become the variant responsible for most COVID cases here in the United States in just a few short weeks. According to an article from the TODAY Show, the omicron subvariant accounts for nearly one-third of cases nationwide and is “highly infectious.”

People across at least 10 states have now been infected by BA.2.86, a highly mutated variant of the virus that causes COVID-19 that authorities have been closely tracking. According to data tallied from the global virus database GISAID, labs have reported finding BA.2.86 in samples from Colorado, Maryland, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Washington. Estimates suggest BA.2.86 still remains a small fraction of new COVID-19 cases nationwide. Too few sequences of the virus have been reported to show up on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's biweekly variant estimates, which still show that a long...

Doctors say they're finding it increasingly difficult to distinguish Covid from allergies or the common cold, even as hospitalizations tick up. The illness' past hallmarks, such as a dry cough or the loss of sense of taste or smell, have become less common. Instead, doctors are observing milder disease, mostly concentrated in the upper respiratory tract.

A second American tested positive for the new highly-mutated BA.2.86 Covid variant that has been causing global alarm over its rapid transmission.A second American tested positive for the new highly-mutated BA.2.86 Covid variant that has been causing global alarm over its rapid transmission. The positive case was detected in an asymptomatic patient in Virginia who was tested August 10 after returning to the US from Japan. Scientists identified the case in a database that contains test samples from a small number of travelers entering the US. Independent experts told DailyMail.com they believe the new strain is spreading more widely and...

More than 3 years into the COVID-19 era, most Americans have settled back into their pre-pandemic lifestyles. But a new dominant variant and rising hospitalization numbers may give way to another summer surge. Since April, a new COVID variant has cropped up. According to recent CDC data, EG.5 – from the Omicron family – now makes up 17% of all cases in the U.S., up from 7.5% in the first week of July.

An uptick in Covid cases and hospitalizations in the U.S., and the emergence of new variants of the virus, are prompting questions about whether Americans should start masking up again. One thing's for sure: People infected with Covid should wear masks around others to prevent the spread of the virus. For those not infected, the decision to mask depends on a few things. That includes your personal risk level, Covid rates in your region and who you might make contact with, public health experts said.

As COVID-19 cases continue to rise nationwide, a new variant dubbed “Pirola” has experts worried. Also referred to as BA.2.86, Pirola is a highly mutated variant of the Omicron strain of the coronavirus, which emerged in 2021 and led to a frightful spike in COVID-19 cases and deaths. “When Omicron hit in the winter of 2021, there was a huge rise in COVID-19 cases because it was so different from the Delta variant, and it evaded immunity from both natural infection and vaccination,” infectious disease specialist Dr. Scott Roberts said in a Yale Medicine bulletin. The bulletin states that “there...

On the one hand, mask mandates are back. On the other hand, the Associated Press says that's all a conspiracy theory. On the other other hand, Covid hospitalizations are up - and there's a scary new variant from... (hurls dart at map of the world) Denmark and... (hurls second dart, backward over shoulder) Israel. On the other other other hand, that eighth shot is sure to work: snip I take it most of the above is just prepping the battlefield for next year's presidential election. But, as you know, I am more interested in the news that doesn't make the...

(NEXSTAR) – As more students head back to classrooms, public health officials are keeping a close eye on the rising COVID-19 numbers around the country. The number of people being admitted to the hospital with the virus has been rising week after week, most recently jumping by 21% nationwide. Will the back-to-school season worsen the summer spike we’re seeing? Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease expert at the University of California, San Francisco, expects the trend to look pretty similar to last year. “Overall, I would expect cases and hospitalizations to increase – then decrease again before they rise in...

COVID-19 isn’t quite done with the world yet. Small surges of cases in the U.S., as well as upticks in COVID-19 hospitalizations over the summer, and new variants that weren’t around even three months ago, remind us that SARS-CoV-2 is still a health threat for the coming fall and winter. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is expected to make a decision about which strain to target in the updated vaccine, which the agency says will be available in mid-to-late September. The FDA will be considering recommendations by the panel of independent vaccine experts it convened in June, which...

A highly mutated new variant of the virus that causes Covid-19 has countries on alert as scientists scramble to understand how far it has spread and how well our immunity will defend against it. The new variant, called BA.2.86 and nicknamed Pirola by variant hunters on social media, has more than 30 amino acid changes to its spike protein compared with its next closest ancestor, the BA.2 subvariant of Omicron, according to Dr. Jesse Bloom, who studies viral evolution at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle. “This makes it an evolutionary jump comparable in size to that which originally...

A new subvariant of COVID-19 is increasing in the US and is now responsible for nearly 10% of all new cases, according to alerts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and World Health Organization. The CDC estimates that omicron strain XBB.1.16 — more commonly known as “Arcturus” — was the cause of 9.6% of new infections this week. That represents an increase from nearly 6% last week and about 3% the week prior. Because of the spike in infections, the World Health Organization is warning the public of the possibility that the new strain could become the dominant...

The names of the COVID-19 variants are getting longer. The current version is omicron-XBB.1.5, and it is credited with a spike in hospitalizations during late December in New York City that is now moving throughout the Northeast. Coincidentally, this is the country’s most highly vaccinated and boosted region. According to an analysis by Eric Topol, executive vice president of the Research Department of Molecular Medicine at the Scripps Institute, XBB.1.5 has mutations that lead to immune escape and possesses a distinct growth advantage against the previous dominant omicron variant, BQ.1. More great news includes a study published in Cell that...