The Arizona Department of Health Services said on Aug. 30 that there had been 3,457 new cases reported in the preceding week, compared to 1,415 in the week before July 2.
WASHINGTON — First lady Jill Biden’s positive COVID-19 test this weekend was the latest, and most high-profile, reminder that cases are once again on the rise in the U.S. and in Arizona, where new infections per week have more than doubled since early July.
Dr. Josh Michaud, the associate director of global health policy at KFF, said that it’s “not really a smart move” to try to predict how long an outbreak might last, given the unpredictability of COVID-19 so far. But he and others say the current summer surge will be followed by a winter spike in cases, a pattern that has been seen in recent years.
While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is not currently reporting the number of new infections nationwide, it did report that COVID-19 hospitalizations rose 15.7% in the week ending Aug. 26 and deaths increased 17.6% in the same week. Still, both numbers are down sharply from the highs of January 2022.
The good news is that the latest variant of the virus does not appear to be as lethal as previous versions. Experts also said that people seem to be taking the threat seriously, and getting vaccinated when it is appropriate. “If they are not up to date on their vaccines in particular they’re at some risk for these severe complications and many of the hospitalizations that we are seeing now fall into those categories,” Michaud said.