COVID-19 is spreading through our city once again.
We have come a long way in dealing with the virus thanks to the vaccines and treatments developed by our nation’s biomedical community, but we must remain vigilant. COVID can still be deadly, particularly for the unvaccinated and people with certain pre-existing conditions.
Since late June, the community risk level for contracting COVID-19 has been designated by public health officials as “high.”
Fewer people are being hospitalized than during the major surges of previous variants that our community has experienced, and that is encouraging.
Still, hospital admissions have increased in recent weeks. The number of COVID patients who are in ICU and on ventilators has been rising as well.
The hospital census has hovered around 300 COVID patients in recent days. The latest from health officials showed that 19.8 per 100,000 residents are hospitalized with COVID.
More than 60 percent of the patients who are hospitalized are unvaccinated.
Those numbers show that vaccinations remain significant in fighting the spread of COVID-19 even if they are less effective against new variants.
Cases have been increasing for several weeks, and public health officials say two highly contagious Omicron subvariants – BA.4 and BA.5 — are the main culprits. Health officials say they have not found evidence that the new variants are causing more severe illness.
The seven-day moving average topped 900 COVID cases last week. That is almost double the average case load in early June.
The most recent data released by the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District showed the seven-day cumulative case count in Bexar County is 329 cases per 100,000 residents.
More than 579,000 COVID cases have been recorded in Bexar County since the pandemic began.
But the prevalence of home testing means that the official case count does not include many cases in our community.
Many people who test positive at home and who do not get sick enough to require hospitalization stay home until they are testing negative again, but they do not report their case to health officials. Under these circumstances, it is impossible for public health officials to keep a complete count of COVID cases.
