Covid summer wave reaches across the U.S., with 26 states showing high waste water readings

Covid summer wave spreads across U.S., even infecting Biden Coronavirus activity in wastewater reached levels considered “high” or “very high” in 26 states, according to the most recent CDC data. The Washington Post

A summer covid wave has washed over most of the United States, bringing yet another round of gatherings turned into superspreaders, vacations foiled by illness and reminders that pandemic life has not been fully erased. Not even President Biden was spared.

Coronavirus activity in wastewater reached levels considered “high” or “very high” in 26 states, according to the most recent data reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Other metrics also suggest the virus is rising, including the prevalence of covid diagnoses in emergency rooms and the rate of tests processed at labs coming back positive, but not to the degree of the winter surge.

Biden entered isolation in his Rehoboth Beach home in Delaware after testing positive with mild symptoms Wednesday, the most high-profile example of the virus’s reach. In a July 7 campaign event in Pennsylvania, Biden contrasted himself with Donald Trump by declaring, “I ended the pandemic — he didn’t.”

His administration no longer treats covid as a public health emergency, but instead is managing it as a routine respiratory virus to be blunted with an annual vaccination campaign. This strategy reflects how SARS-CoV-2 has established itself as a common pathogen that no longer overwhelms hospitals or the health-care system — the threat that spurred drastic measures to contain transmission early in the pandemic.

“Covid is not gone. Covid is going to be around, probably forever, and we are going to typically see two to three waves a year,” said Ashish Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health who stepped down last year as the White House coronavirus coordinator.

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