The most recent CDC data continues to show a rise in COVID-19's presence across multiple national indicators including hospital admissions, emergency department visits, test positivity, and wastewater levels, but deaths due to the virus remain largely unchanged at 1 percent.
Here are five other recent COVID-19 updates:
- The latest subvariant, EG.5, now accounts for 11.4 percent of U.S. COVID-19 cases.
- The National Institutes of Health detailed its plans, as of July 31, to test at least four different treatments for long COVID, including Pfizer’s Paxlovid, as potential therapies for the condition.
- Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have developed a breath test capable of identifying individuals infected with COVID-19 in under one minute.
- Epidemiologists are predicting that in a best case scenario for COVID-19's spread this coming respiratory virus season could lead to 484,000 hospitalizations and 45,000 deaths between September 2023 and April 2024.
- While the last two respiratory virus seasons have been referred to as 'tripledemics' with the combination of RSV, flu and COVID-19, experts say the addition of the RSV vaccines this coming fall and uptake of both flu and COVID-19 shots will help prevent strain on hospitals.