Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
COVID-19 levels are rising in the United States, with the highest numbers occurring along the West Coast, according to new data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
On Aug. 8, the CDC stated that the national wastewater viral activity for COVID-19 increased from “low” to “moderate” from the previous week, according to an Epoch Times review. The region with the highest number of cases is the western United States, it stated.
“Wastewater monitoring can detect viruses spreading from one person to another within a community earlier than clinical testing and before people who are sick go to their doctor or hospital,” the CDC says on its website. “If you see increased wastewater viral activity levels, it might indicate that there is a higher risk of infection.”
Louisiana and Hawaii reported a very high number of cases, according to the CDC’s map. States reporting a high number of cases were California, Alaska, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Texas, Indiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and South Carolina.
In contrast to the CDC’s wastewater-based estimates, a separate update based on laboratory results and released on Aug. 8 shows that COVID-19 is currently at “low” levels in the United States but is “increasing.”
“COVID-19 laboratory percent positivity is increasing nationally,” the CDC stated. “Emergency department visits for COVID-19 are increasing among all ages. COVID-19 wastewater activity levels and model-based epidemic trends indicate that COVID-19 infections are growing or likely growing in most states.”
However, overall respiratory illness levels can be considered “very low” across the United States, according to the CDC. That includes influenza, considered “low,” and RSV, which is “very low,” according to the agency.
The CDC has not updated its COVID-19 variant estimates since mid-June. The CDC stated on its website that because of “low numbers of sequences being reported,” the agency is now moving to “longer reporting periods” for the various variants.
But in the last update, it noted that there were growing proportions of variants such as NB.1.8.1 and XFG, which were both declared “variants under monitoring” by the World Health Organization (WHO) in May and June, respectively.
“The available evidence on NB.1.8.1 does not suggest additional public health risks relative to the other currently circulating Omicron descendent lineages,” the WHO stated about the NB.1.8.1 strain.
The United Nations health body issued a similar statement about the XFG variant in June.
The NB.1.8.1 appears to have been driving a rise in cases across mainland China since earlier this year. However, because of the Chinese Communist Party’s history of blocking access to information and publishing inaccurate data, including underreporting COVID-19 infections and related deaths since 2020, it is difficult to assess the true scale of the current outbreak.
The updates come as Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has changed the COVID-19 vaccine policy since the Trump administration took over earlier this year.
Last month, the HHS dismissed all 17 members of the CDC vaccine advisory panel, ordered the removal of mercury from influenza vaccines, and ended the CDC’s COVID-19 vaccine recommendations for pregnant women and healthy children.