(CNN) — Are you coughing, hacking or feeling feverish? It may not be just a summer cold; you might want to consider taking a Covid test.
Although the autumn respiratory illness season hasn’t kicked off, and flu and RSV activity remain low, there’s a growing summer wave of Covid-19.
Case numbers aren’t especially high, and the United States isn’t recording many hospitalizations or deaths. But data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts the test positivity rate for the week ending August 8 above 3% for the first time since March, with numbers climbing in every state.
“August is solidly Covid season,” said Dr. Caitlin Rivers, an expert in outbreak science and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health and Security. “Right now, the South and the West are sort of the leading edge of this Covid season. In the past, it almost always starts in Florida, Texas and Georgia, which is exactly what we’re seeing this year.”
Respiratory viruses circulate year-round in the United States, but waiting rooms typically fill with flu and RSV cases in the fall and winter. Since Covid joined the mix, coughing and sneezing season seems to be starting sooner.
Flu and RSV cases typically peak only once each year, between December and February, and taper off around April. Covid behaves differently, with winter and summer seasons. Experts say it’s a good time to take precautions.
How to stay aware
Tracking where Covid is spreading is a good first step toward avoiding illness, says Dr. Amanda Zink, an emergency room doctor in Alaska and a Yale University fellow who helped develop PopHIVE, a free platform for checking local and national health trends in the US that uses near real-time health data.
But tracking Covid cases has become trickier than it was during the height of the pandemic, when daily case counts were available on the CDC website. The federal government now collects far less data than it did during the pandemic. Labs no longer have to report negative tests, and hospitals no longer have to report specific bed capacity.
“We just have the tools we have,” said Dr. Scott Harris, state health officer for the Alabama Department of Public Health.
The CDC now relies on indicators including wastewater data, emergency room visits and lab results to gauge how much Covid is circulating in the country.
In Alabama, Harris says, Covid is not reflected in hospitalizations or mortality data yet, but cases are registering an “uptick” rather than a surge.
“It is going up,” Harris said Tuesday at a briefing held by the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. “We don’t know how to describe these numbers that we’re seeing in terms of what the denominator is anymore.”
“Now we just know when we get a positive test, and we don’t even have clinical data sometimes to put that in context.”
Zink says that before traveling, people may want to consult PopHIVE and other disease tracking sites to help them decide what level of protection they want to bring with them.
“They can connect directly and say ‘what does the respiratory diseases look like in Kentucky?’ ” said Zink, who was chief medical officer for Alaska during the pandemic. “It can be helpful to know what’s out there, and then take the measures that you feel comfortable with and that you have the power to control.”
Amanda Bidwell, scientific program manager at WastewaterSCAN, a Stanford University-based program that monitors viruses and other germs in wastewater that updates daily, says she treats her website almost like a weather map before going out.
“I live in the Bay Area of California, and I’m able to look at my phone and be like, ‘Yep, Covid is taking off right now. I’m going to wear my mask if I’m going to go to this concert or going to get on a plane.’ ”
Wastewater data can also reveal where Covid or other diseases may worsen next, since people shed viral RNA days before they feel sick or get tested.
The CDC’s wastewater surveillance report says Covid is “very low” as of the week ending August 8. WastewaterSCAN, which uses different methodology and is more up to date, characterizes activity as “high.” It also detects an upward trend in the past 21 days in every region except the Midwest, where activity is “medium.”
With last-minute summer travel, the start of a new school year, and declining immunity from prior vaccination or infection, Covid cases will probably continue to rise.
Tracking case severity can also help you gauge your level of risk. The CDC’s analysis of emergency room data says that visits are low for Covid in many regions but increasing in the West and South as of August 12.
Preventing illness
Covid can still be serious and even deadly, so Zink reminds patients that there are non-pharmaceutical options to help keep them out of her emergency room in Palmer, Alaska.
Zink urges everyone to wash their hands regularly. The CDC suggests washing with soap and water for about 20 seconds, or about the time it takes to sing “Happy Birthday” twice.
A well-fitting N95 mask can filter at least 95% of airborne particles and help prevent you from breathing in the virus, as well as stopping you from spreading the virus if you are sick.
If you didn’t get a Covid vaccine last year, you may want to talk to your healthcare provider or pharmacist about getting one, maybe even the one that was formulated for last season, said Dr. James McDonald, commissioner of health for the New York State Department of Health.
“For people that are really at high-risk, for sure, if it’s been eight or 10 months since you’ve had the vaccine, I would say please talk to your provider about that,” McDonald noted, it’s not a black and white answer, but it’s important to find out what’s right for the individual based on their risk factors.
The US Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee has made its suggestions for what should go into this season’s Covid shot. Experts expect it to start becoming available in late September, even though the CDC hasn’t officially recommended it.
Under the Trump administration, the federal government has shifted from a universal Covid vaccine recommendation to a more restricted one in which it’s recommended for everyone 6 months and over to consult with a healthcare provider. Most medical organizations recommend getting it, and insurance companies have indicated that they will continue to cover the shot.
If someone in your family gets sick or if you have close contact with someone with Covid, you might be able to take a new drug called Xocova, the first FDA-approved oral antiviral pill designed to help prevent illness in people 12 and older who are exposed to the coronavirus.
What to do if you get sick
If you get sick, Paxlovid can reduce your risk of developing a severe infection, particularly if you start taking the drug early after symptoms begin. But it’s no longer free, like it was during the pandemic, so check to see if your insurance covers it.
To help prevent the spread of illness, stay home when you have symptoms. The CDC recommends isolating and wearing a mask around others while symptoms continue.
When you’ve been fever-free without medication for 24 hours, the agency says, it’s safe to interact with others.
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