Local COVID data paints grim picture
Rise in hospitalizations, positivity rate offers better look at leading variant’s surge in area
COVID-19 hospitalizations have nearly doubled in the Houston area over the last month, according to republished Texas Medical Center data, which paints a clearer picture of the risk associated with newer, increasingly transmissible versions of the virus.
The Medical Center discontinued its weekly reports in May, when the omicron wave had officially receded, and COVID drifted out of the public’s mind. But a new COVID surge prompted the Medical Center to post a revamped dashboard Tuesday, showing the virus remains a persistent part of life.
Among the more urgent revelations: The average number of daily new hospitalizations rose from 121 in early June to 224 last week. That number is nearly half of the record-breaking hospitalization peak in early January, when an average of 515 COVID patients were admitted per day, according to the updated TMC data.
“Hopefully it’s peaking,” Dr. Paul Klotman, president and CEO of Baylor College of Medicine, said during a Tuesday news briefing. “It’s still a dangerous virus.”
The positivity rate also has seen a dramatic increase in the Medical Center over the last month, jumping from 8.8 percent in early June to 16.1 percent last week. The citywide rate is worse, with 29 percent of Houstonians testing for COVID coming up positive.
The increase coincides with the rise of BA.5, a latest subvariant in the omicron lineage, which in a matter of weeks took over as the dominant strain in the U.S. First detected in South Africa, the subvariant made its way to
the U.S. in early May and now makes up 65 percent of cases nationwide. In the Houston Methodist system, BA.5 comprises 57 percent of cases, while BA.4, another highly transmissible strain, makes up 19 percent.
BA.5 is concerning, experts say, because it appears to be more capable of reinfecting people and more resistant to vaccine-induced immunity. Even those who battled a COVID infection a few weeks ago could be susceptible to BA.5, said Dr. Wesley Long, a clinical pathologist and medical director of diagnostic microbiology at Houston Methodist.
“In previous waves, there was a thought that if you were infected, you had natural immunity for a couple of months,” he said.
“With this shift from BA.2 to BA.5, that rule isn’t holding true.”
A recent study published in Nature found that BA.4 and 5 — which share similar mutations — are more likely to cause vaccine breakthrough infections compared to BA.2.12, the previously dominant strain. Waning vaccine immunity also compounds the risk.
Even so, vaccines are still effective at preventing severe disease, hospitalization and death, Long said.
“People shouldn’t get the wrong idea and think ‘I don’t need to get my vaccine’ or ‘I don’t need to get my booster,’ ” he said.
It’s still too early to say whether BA.5 is causing more severe illness than its predecessors. Early research shows it contains mutations found in the delta variant, which was linked to
more acute sickness. But the rise in hospitalizations could simply be attributed to the volume of infections in the community, said Klotman.
On paper, case numbers appear relatively low and stable, but those statistics are unreliable with the rise of at-home testing. Experts say the number of daily cases is likely similar to cases during the omicron wave, which at its peak sickened more than 800,000 people in a day nationwide, including more than 10,000 in Harris County. The county last week surpassed 1 million cases over the course of the pandemic.
The new Medical Center dashboard also adds wastewater data, a more reliable indicator of local infection trends. That data shows the amount of virus in the community is higher than ever, exceeding infection rates in July 2020 by 843 percent.
There are silver linings amid the surge.
ICU rates are lower now compared to the previous two waves, according to the TMC data, which more clearly shows intensive care trends. Of the 855 COVID patients hospitalized last week, 12 percent were in the ICU. During the worst week of omicron wave in January, about 17 percent of the people hospitalized needed intensive care. About 22 percent of patients were in the ICU at the height of the delta wave in August 2021.
Death rates have also slowed dramatically, with Texas reporting a 7-day average of 18, compared to 224 in February.
While mask-wearing has disappeared from public life, experts say at-risk groups should wear one indoors. Klotman, who said he recently tested positive, said he now wears one indoors around others.
Biden administration officials also are planning to allow all adults to receive a second booster shot, pending federal agency approvals, according to the Washington Post. Klotman and Long said people should take advantage as soon as possible and not wait until the fall, when Pfizer and Moderna could roll out updated versions.
In the long term, the U.S. needs to devise a more sophisticated vaccine response, Klotman said. The current strategy “ain’t working,” he said.
“We’re sort of chasing this ever-changing entity,” he said, adding, “We need the second generation vaccine, and that’s got to be a combination of industry but also a sponsorship of government research.”