Experts concerned about detection of COVID wave in the US

– Although more people are doing the rapid COVID-19 test at home, fewer people are doing the tests benchmarks that the government relies on to count cases.

– The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will soon use fewer labs to screen for new variants.

– Health officials are increasingly focusing on hospital admissions, which rise only after the wave hit.

– A wastewater monitoring program remains a patchwork that cannot yet be counted on to provide the data needed to understand the coming waves.

– White House officials say the government is running out of funds to vaccines, treatments and tests.

“We’re not in an ideal situation,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, a pandemic researcher at Brown University.

The scientists acknowledged that the widespread availability of vaccines and treatments puts the country in a better situation than when the pandemic began, and that monitoring has come a long way.

For example, this week scientists announced a 6-month-old program that tests people arriving from abroad at four US airports for coronavirus. Genetic testing of a sample from Dec. 14 discovered a variant of the coronavirus, the omicron descendant known as BA.2, seven days before any other reported detections in the United States.

And there’s more good news: For weeks, cases, hospitalizations and deaths in the United States have been on the decline.

But the same is not true elsewhere. This week, the World Health Organization reported that the number of new coronavirus cases increased for two consecutive weeks globally, probably because prevention measures against COVID-19 have been withdrawn in several countries and BA.2 spreads. more easily.