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.
