New data from the CDC shows COVID hospitalizations are on the rise

 

new data from the CDC that shows covet

hospitalizations increased during the

last week of July and this comes as

tracking re-infections of the virus

continue to wane after the public health

emergency ended in May ABC News medical

contributor and epidemi epidemiologist

Dr John Brownstein is joining us now for

more so thank you so much for being with

us Dr Brownstein and those

hospitalizations they went up you know

12.5 percent during the end of July

compared to the week prior so

realistically how does that compare to

the peak of this pandemic and do we need

to be concerned

yeah well well Cana we do have to be

concerned to a certain degree and be

vigilant and we are seeing a lot more

people around us getting coveted that

being said those numbers still remain

incredibly low if you put into

perspective you've seen about 9 000

weekly hospitalizations we had about 150

000 during the height of the Omicron

Peak so it's still such a small fraction

and we haven't seen any changes in death

so there's there could be reporting

delays a lot of these increasing cases

are related to this new variant the eg5

but it's really descendant of Omer khron

so our existing treatments our tests our

vaccines all work so yes we should watch

these numbers and be concerned but

overall this isn't a big change in the

pandemic

and what about protecting ourselves you

know a lot of people need to stay inside

during the hot weather other people are

doing a lot of traveling over the summer

yeah I mean I think we have to be

concerned about aggregation it's raining

really badly here in Boston people are

coming together that is a recipe for

transmission that being said we have the

tools to protect ourselves we have the

vaccines we have an upcoming booster

shot that I urge people that are

eligible to get that booster shot

overall we have the tools people just

need to follow local guidelines and

understand that in situations where you

have high transmission you want to try

to find ways to reduce risk so that

ultimately is something that we can all

abide by and help to reduce transmission

heading into the fall

and the US Department of Health and

Human Services recently announced is

opening an office that will focus on

Long coveted research and we'll launch

some clinical trials so how significant

is that and what are researchers hoping

to learn there

yeah this is a really big deal this is

the largest investment in Long covet

that we've seen to date over a billion

dollars and this is important because 1

in 13 adults suffer from long covet

that's about 7.5 percent of the

population over 20 million people so it

represents a massive burden and so we

need to fully understand and appreciate

why Lo and covet happens so we don't

have to understand the causes we have to

understand better treatments and we have

to provide better care so this is an

amazing initiative that hopefully will

help a lot of people

all right ABC News medical contributor

Dr John Brownstein thank you for your

time hi everyone George Stephanopoulos

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