Nearly 35,000 COVID-19 patients were admitted to hospitals across the country in the week ending Dec. 30 — a 20% jump from the week prior. In the same week, more than 20,000 flu patients were hospitalized, according to the latest updates from the CDC.
Since the pandemic began, COVID-19 cases have surged every winter similar to flu and respiratory syncytial virus. However, the CDC does not yet recognize COVID-19 as a seasonal disease. Experts say low vaccine uptake, a new variant with more immune-evasive properties, and low utilization of Paxlovid shouldn't be overlooked as factors driving up cases this winter.
"If you look at the different peaks in cases since the beginning of the pandemic, every one of them coincided with the emergence of a new variant," Michael Osterholm, PhD, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, told The Washington Post in a Jan. 4 report. "Too many people are attributing this to seasonality."
The JN.1 variant has grown rapidly since mid-November, with the latest CDC estimates showing it is now the dominant U.S. strain, accounting for nearly 62% of cases. The strain is closely related to BA.2.86, which first caught experts' attention over the summer because of its large number of mutations in the spike protein. JN.1 has a single additional change in its spike protein, the L455S mutation, that health officials believe may make it either more transmissible or better at evading immunity than earlier strains. However, there has been no evidence it causes more severe illness.
JN.1 gained dominance earlier in Singapore, where it didn't seem to cause a higher proportion of hospitalizations, ABC News said in a Jan. 5 report.
"But like with other variants that are more transmissible, the more people that get infected, even if a smaller percentage of them go to the hospital, it's going to numerically mean a lot," Peter Chin-Hong, MD, a professor of medicine and infectious disease expert at UC San Francisco, told the news outlet.
Hospitals across the U.S. have been grappling with volume surges as respiratory virus metrics continue to climb. As a result, some have reinstated mask mandates and are opening up additional units to handle the influx.