COVID was vanishing last Memorial Day
Majority of strains in U.S. the most contagious thus far
For the third year, Americans are greeting the unofficial start of summer shadowed by the specter of the coronavirus amid rising COVID -19 cases and hospitalizations across the country.
The United States is recording more than 100,000 infections a day — at least five times higher than this point last year — as it confronts the most transmissible versions of the virus yet. Immunity built up as a result of the record winter outbreak appears to provide little protection against the latest variants, new research shows. And public health authorities are bracing for Memorial Day gatherings to fuel another bump in cases, potentially seeding a summer surge.
It’s a far cry from a year ago, with predictions of a “hot vax summer” uninhibited by COVID concerns. Back then, coronavirus seemed to teeter on the brink of defeat as cases plummeted to their lowest levels since spring 2020 and vaccines became widely available for adults. Even the vaccinated and boosted now grudgingly accept the virus as a formidable foe that’s here to stay as governments abandon measures to contain it.
As the virus morphs and the scientific understanding of how it operates shifts with each variant, Americans are drawing their own lines for what they feel comfortable doing.
“This time last year, I was so hopeful,” said Margaret Thornton, a 35-yearold Philadelphia researcher preparing to spend her summer socializing mostly outdoors because of her weakened immune system. “Now, I don’t know when it’s going to be over, and I don’t think there is necessarily a light at the end of the tunnel. Or rather, if there is a light, is it an opening to get out? Or is it a train?”
Parents of children too young to be vaccinated are making cross-country travel plans. Octogenarians are venturing to bars. And families are celebrating graduations and weddings with throngs of mostly unmasked revelers — mindful they may get sick. Again.
More than half of the U.S. population is living in areas classified as having medium or high COVID -19 levels by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The latest cases have yet to overrun hospitals, but that could change as the virus spreads among more vulnerable people. The dominant strains circulating in the United States are the most contagious thus far.
“This one is really revved up, and it’s probably getting up there with something as transmissible as measles,” said Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College, describing the BA.2.12.1 subvariant now accounting for more than half of new cases. “Over the Memorial Day holidays, if you are in settings where you are indoors with large numbers of people without masks ... there is a good likelihood you will suffer a breakthrough infection.”
Experts had hoped that the explosion of the omicron variant this winter, estimated to have infected a quarter of Americans who hadn’t already been infected, and the subsequent spring wave of omicron’s even more transmissible subvariants, would provide a buffer against future surges.
But an emerging body of research suggests those infections will not confer lasting protection as the virus’s latest iterations show remarkable ability
This time last year, I was so hopeful. Now, I don’t know when it’s going to be over, and I don’t think there is necessarily a light at the end of the tunnel. Or rather, if there is a light, is it an opening to get out? Or is it a train?”
— Margaret Thornton, a 35-year-old Philadelphia
researcher
to escape immunity. Experts say the recently infected who also received booster shots can count on at least several months of immunity, while the unvaccinated should expect little protection.
“You should not think, ‘Oh, I had omicron, I don’t need any shots’ or ‘I don’t need any more shots,’” said Melanie Ott, director of the Gladstone Institute of Virology and a co-author of a paper recently published in Nature finding limited natural immunity from the omicron variant. “We are going into a surge of the omicron subvariants that are more and more able to infect people who have pre-existing immunity.”
Experts say vaccines are still showing durability in protecting people against severe illness. But
the initial burst of antibodies from shots or infections fades after several months, said Celine Gounder, an infectious-diseases specialist and senior fellow at Kaiser Health News. That means the virus can develop into an infection before the body’s immune system kicks in.
Burhan Yardimci, his wife and their three young children — who had all contracted coronavirus in February — joined thousands of Turkish Americans on Madison Avenue recently for the return of New York’s annual Turkish Day Parade, canceled the last two years because of the pandemic. The next day, the family stood among another crowd of thousands for the Celebrate Israel Parade.
Yardimci doesn’t take much solace in his recent infection as an extra layer of protection. He thought his booster shot would stop infections, but he knows people who’ve had the virus three times. Because no one in his family became seriously ill, he doesn’t see the need to upend his life when everyone around him appears to be carrying on as normal.
“Hopefully, we’ll never get it again,” Yardimci, 42, said.
In the Boston suburbs, Mandy Boyd found herself humbled by coronavirus after getting infected twice in five months: during the massive omicron wave in January, and again in May after attending a 150-person indoor wedding. Neither case was severe.
The experience left the 35-year-old health technology worker reassessing how to protect her 4- and 6-year-old children from infections that would disrupt their schooling or summer camp. She still plans to dine out and go to the gym, but her family will wear masks on their flight to Seattle for an upcoming vacation as well as when they watch a WNBA game while there. She worries about passing on a future variant to her children, even if her short-term immunity protects her from getting sick.
“We’re in a strange spot because it turned into a much more minor virus,” said Boyd of Swampscott, Mass. “From that perspective, I don’t see that the world should stop or schools should close.”
Graduations, proms and weddings have also returned after being canceled in earlier stages of the pandemic when cases were lower than they are now.
Adeline Rosales, 26, was among the hundreds of California State University Long Beach students in caps and gowns flooding into Angel Stadium in Anaheim on a recent morning. It was her first encounter with some classmates in the College of Health and Human Services who were only
familiar as faces on a computer screen during virtual class. She felt comfortable marching alongside them through a tunnel and onto the field knowing the university required vaccines and booster shots. And it was important for her relatives to celebrate the occasion with her because she is the first in the family to graduate college.
But to avoid graduation crowds, she said the family waited several days for their celebratory dinner because they were a little scared as infections rose and Los Angeles County moved from a low to medium COVID -19 risk level. Rosales lives with her parents, both of whom have pre-existing conditions, and six other relatives.
“I don’t want to risk it at this point,” Rosales said. “We’re just trying to be as respectful to my parents as possible.”
For most Americans, coronavirus has faded from the foreground.
More than half say they are not too concerned or not at all concerned with coronavirus, according to a May survey by Monmouth University.
Nearly three-quarters say they hope to vacation this summer and less than a third say coronavirus is a major factor in their plans, according to a recent Washington PostSchar School poll. The Transportation Security Administration on Thursday reported screening more than half a million additional fliers a day compared with the same day last year.
Experts are paying close attention to the Southeast for a potential COVID resurgence because the region did not experience as many cases in the spring as the Northeast, and rising temperatures are driving people indoors.
For Jeff Schulte, a 63year-old retiree, coronavirus has never really gone away, and he sees no reason to change his behavior for an omnipresent threat.
“For the rest of our lives, it’s here,” he said while smoking a cigarette outside the library in downtown Sarasota, Fla. “It’s going to catch every one of us.”
Parents of young children are entering Memorial Day weekend frustrated that children younger than 5 remain the only group ineligible for vaccines. The prospect of regulators clearing shots by the end of June is becoming increasingly likely after Pfizer-BioNTech reported data showing their three-dose regimen proved 80 percent effective in preventing symptomatic infections in children 6 months to 4 years old.
In the meantime, parents are navigating how to protect their unvaccinated children when cases are rising and others are dropping their guards.