COVID-19 hospitalizations have ticked up nationwide in recent weeks amid concerns of a potential winter surge, according to data tracked by The New York Times.
As of Nov. 29, the nation's daily hospitalization average was 31,125, up 12 percent over the last 14 days. This figure is still down significantly from the more than 800,000 daily hospitalizations recorded during the peak of last winter's omicron surge.
Overall, COVID-19 hospitalizations are rising in 32 states, along with Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. The scale of increase varies greatly by state. Louisiana has seen the largest jump in hospitalizations over the last 14 days at 84 percent, while North Carolina has seen the lowest at 2 percent.
The national rise in hospitalizations come as the highly transmissible omicron subvariants BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 account for 57 percent of U.S. COVID-19 cases, according to the CDC's latest variant proportion estimates.
Due to a high level of variant diversity, experts say a potential uptick in COVID-19 cases this winter would likely be driven by several different lineages, rather than just one. Experts are also optimistic that any such surge would be less severe than past years.