COVID-19 cases at least 5 times higher than Memorial Day 2021
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-19 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-year-old 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 Dr. 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 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 preexisting 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.
Mr. 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,” said Mr. Yardimci, 42.
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.