As the summer travel season wraps up, COVID cases and hospitalizations are rising in Los Angeles County — and some recently reinfected people are finding their latest round to be the worst yet.
At this time there is no indication that the latest coronavirus variants are causing more severe disease nationally or in California. While Covid hospitalizations in LA County are still rising, and are now higher than they were at this time last year, they remain relatively low Light Its peak will be seen in the summer of 2023.
But doctors have always warned that, although subsequent COVID infections are often milder than the first case of the disease, they can still cause severe illness. serious illnessEven if someone doesn’t need to go to the emergency room or be hospitalized, people still describe painful, even excruciating symptoms.
“The assumption is that every time you get COVID, it’s mild. But I think we should also keep our minds open to the possibility that some people may have worse symptoms,” said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease expert at UC San Francisco.
Getting COVID every time, he said, is “kind of like playing COVID roulette.”
Because everyone’s experience with COVID is different and influenced by many factors, it’s difficult to determine how many people are experiencing more intense symptoms now than their previous infections. But people, including on social media sites, have expressed surprise at how sick they’ve gotten from the latest subvariant, which is one of the first to be spread. Collectively nicknamed FLiRT,
“I’ve had COVID several times before but this is by far the worst experience,” one person wrote. redditThe man said he had frequent fevers, a stuffy nose so bad he couldn’t breathe, “terrible pressure in my sinuses and headaches … and I can’t stay upright for very long; I feel like I’m going to pass out.”
“At first COVID seemed like just a common cold, but this strain is wreaking havoc,” the person wrote. “I don’t like to complain like this, but I’m surprised at how much it’s bothering me.”
another person wrote that his “throat feels like a razor blade” and that he feels like he is “living in misery.”
“I have a lot of phlegm, but it hurts so much to cough up because my throat is literally on fire!!” person wrote. “This is my 4th time getting COVID and I swear I feel like this is the worst time ever!!”
Others who survived Covid for more than four years also became infected this summer.
A man fell ill and tested positive for the first time after hosting a gathering for 12 people on Father’s Day. It has been told “The uncontrollable body was so intensely cold that I couldn’t even feel my fingers.”
A 42-year-old nurse who has had Covid four times, Said His latest illness is “serious with fever, cough, pressure and pain in the head. It is attacking my throat and ability to swallow.”
However, others say that each subsequent COVID illness It’s easy to recover from. and a person infected for the first time wrote that he had “very mild symptoms (that) feel like seasonal allergies”.
Some studies support the idea that subsequent COVID infections pose additional risks. Report The study, in the journal Nature Medicine and focused on veterans, found that, “compared with non-infected (people), the cumulative risk and burden of recurrent infections increased according to the number of infections,” leading to an increased risk of medical problems, hospitalization and death.
And while the prevalence of long Covid appears to be on the rise DecliningDoctors say that with each infection there is a risk of developing the syndrome. Report A report published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last summer said the prevalence of long-term Covid among US adults was 7.5% in early June 2022, but had dropped to 6% by mid-June 2023 — still a notable share of the population.
There can be many possible causes of Covid disease it might feel worse than beforeLet’s say a person who was vaccinated in 2021 and last had a booster gets infected in 2022 and then gets infected again in 2024. The relatively long gap of not being exposed to an infection or a booster, “probably caused (their body) to not have as much immune memory. And the variants have changed so much anyway, it’s like being exposed to something relatively different from the virus that the immune system has seen before,” Chin-Hong said.
Without staying up to date on COVID vaccinations, which “reminds the immune system what more current variants look like,” a recent infection may leave the body relatively surprised by the FLiRT sub-variants that are now dominant across the country.
“It gets so developed, and the body is like, ‘Oh my god, what is this thing I’m looking at?’” Chin-Hong said.
The logic is much the same for annual flu shots, which are designed each year with the hope that the immune system can prepare to fight the predominant circulating versions of that virus.
For the week ending Saturday, it is estimated that 70.5% of Covid samples across the country were of the FLiRT subvariant – officially known as KP.3, KP.2 and KP.1.1 – up from 54.9% a month ago. Another closely related subvariant, LB.1, is estimated to have been involved in 14.9% of samples, up from 10% a month ago.
Prior immunity from older vaccines can still do a good job of protecting many people from getting seriously ill. But without the refresher that comes with an updated vaccine, Chin-Hong said the immune system “will likely not be able to stop the virus in its tracks, or neutralize the virus as soon as it arrives, because it looks very different before memory immunity is activated.”
“Meanwhile, the virus is happily infecting cells while the body is trying to use its existing memory to make new immune cells,” he said.
It’s also worth noting that, even for younger adults who are considered up-to-date on their COVID vaccinations, it’s often been about a year since their last vaccination, and vaccine effectiveness weakens over time.
A Report A study published by the CDC in February found that getting the updated COVID vaccine for 2023-24 provided about 54% more protection against symptomatic disease than not getting the vaccine. The vaccine’s effectiveness against symptomatic infection is higher in the first few months after getting the updated shot.
The vaccines continued to provide good protection against hospitalization and death.
COVID cases and hospitalizations continue to rise in LA County. In the week ending June 30, an average of 229 coronavirus cases were reported per day, up from 106 a month earlier. And in the week ending June 29, an average of 197 people with coronavirus were hospitalized per day, up from 117 a month earlier.
Officially reported cases are lower, because they only take into account tests done in medical facilities, and do not take into account tests done at home or people who don’t get tested. In L.A. County, last summer’s COVID spike peaked in late August with 571 cases a day, and hospitals peaked at 620 coronavirus-infected people per day in early September.
Viral levels in LA County wastewater have been relatively stable. For the week ending June 22, the most recent data available, viral levels in sewage were at 17% of the 2022-23 winter peak, the same as the previous week. Last summer’s peak was in early September, when viral levels in sewage were at 38% of last winter’s peak.
The rate of positive coronavirus tests in California has been rising steadily. In the week ending July 1, 10.6% of coronavirus tests statewide came back positive, compared with 4.1% a month earlier. Last summer, the positive test rate peaked at 13.1% in late August.
The updated version of the Covid vaccine that became available in September has been used relatively sparingly. Since then, 36.7% of California seniors age 65 and older have received at least one dose. Updates 18.5% of adults aged 50 to 64 and 10% of the youngest adults up to 49 have received the vaccine.
People who haven’t gotten an updated vaccine in the past year “should think about getting one, especially if you’re older and have a weakened immune system,” Chin-Hong said. Hundreds of COVID-19 deaths are occurring nationally each week, with the elderly and those with weakened immune systems at highest risk.
Even getting the 2023-24 vaccine now will allow you to get the updated COVID vaccination that is going to be available this fall. CDC recommend Everyone 6 months and older will get the updated 2024-25 version of the vaccine.
Chin-Hong said the best time for Covid vaccination for 2024-25 is October.
Chin-Hong said healthcare workers also need to be reminded of proper COVID infection control protocols, such as getting tested if they feel sick and reporting their illness to their employer.
“It seems like everyone thinks COVID is the new normal,” Chin-Hong said. But taking sensible steps — like asking co-workers not to come to work if they’re sick and getting tested if you have symptoms — can make a big difference in keeping COVID to a limited number of people.
Chin-Hong said with COVID cases on the rise, it’s also a reminder that it’s wise to keep a mask in your pocket in case you’re around someone who’s sick.
