Welp.
COVID-19 hospitalizations have nearly doubled in the Houston area over the last month, according to re-published Texas Medical Center data, which paints a clearer picture of the risk associated with newer, increasingly transmissible versions of the virus.
The medical center discontinued its weekly reports in May, when the omicron wave had officially receded, and COVID drifted out of the public’s mind. But a new COVID surge prompted the medical center to post a revamped dashboard Tuesday, showing that the virus remains a persistent part of life.
Among the more urgent revelations: The average number of daily new hospitalizations rose from 121 in early June to 224 last week. That number is nearly half of the record-breaking hospitalization peak in early January, when an average of 515 COVID patients were admitted per day, according to the updated TMC data.
“Hopefully it’s peaking,” Dr. Paul Klotman, president and CEO of Baylor College of Medicine, said during a Tuesday news briefing. “It’s still a dangerous virus.”
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The increase coincides with the rise of BA.5, a latest subvariant in the omicron lineage, which in a matter of weeks took over as the dominant strain in the U.S. First detected in South Africa, the subvariant made its way to the U.S. in early May and now makes up 65 percent of cases nationwide. In the Houston Methodist system, BA.5 comprises 57 percent of cases, while BA.4, another highly transmissible strain, makes up 19 percent.
BA.5 is concerning, experts say, because it appears to be more capable of re-infecting people and more resistant to vaccine-induced immunity. Even those who battled a COVID infection a few weeks ago could be susceptible to BA.5, said Dr. Wesley Long, a clinical pathologist and medical director of diagnostic microbiology at Houston Methodist.
“In previous waves, there was a thought that if you were infected, you had natural immunity for a couple of months,” he said. “With this shift from BA.2 to BA.5, that rule isn’t holding true.”
A recent study published in Nature found that BA.4 and 5 — which share similar mutations — are more likely to cause vaccine breakthrough infections compared to BA.2.12, the previously dominant strain. Waning vaccine immunity also compounds the risk.
Even so, vaccines are still effective at preventing severe disease, hospitalization and death, Long said.
“People shouldn’t get the wrong idea and think ‘I don’t need to get my vaccine’ or ‘I don’t need to get my booster,’” he said.
It’s still too early to say whether BA.5 is causing more severe illness than its predecessors. Early research shows it contains mutations found in the delta variant, which was linked to more acute sickness. But the rise in hospitalizations could simply be attributed to the volume of infections in the community, said Klotman.
Yeah, it could be worse. We’ve definitely seen worse. You know what you need to do to keep it from getting worse. All together now: You may be done with COVID, but COVID isn’t done with you. Stace and the Texas Signal have more.