As temperatures in San Diego County climb, there is also a slight increase in COVID-19 rates. A recent county Department of Health and Human Services reported 454 cases of the virus for the week ending June 8. That’s up 111 cases from the previous week.
Kaiser Permanente hospitalist, Dr. Richard Moon said there’s no need for alarm.
“We haven't noticed an increase in hospitalizations that are significant, or complications such as transfers to the (Intensive Care Unit) or increased death. So we know that the treatment and the vaccinations have been effective,” Moon said.
The COVID-19 levels in wastewater collected by Scripps Research align with the rise in cases Moon is observing in the hospital, according to postdoctoral associate Joshua Levy. He said it’s just a small summer wave attributed to the new FLiRT variants.
“We see some seasonality involved in some of these outbreaks. Seem to be driving an increase in cases. This is a time where a lot of kids are coming back from school,” he said.
Levy said the changes in daily behavioral patterns and workflows due to the beginning of summer might be leading to changes in the way the virus spreads.
UC San Diego Health infectious disease doctor Francesca Torriani said the COVID-19 cases she’s seeing resemble a cold.
She said she’s seeing more people with mild symptoms testing positive, which suggests the virus is spreading in the community because people are wearing masks less often and not testing early on in their illness.
But she still has some concerns.
“Where we see it more severe is in the more elderly population. So that's a population that clearly has, there is a relationship between age and severity of disease. And so that should be the population we target for vaccination,” said Torriani.
Both Torriani and Moon emphasized the importance of protective measures this summer, including mask-wearing and getting vaccine boosters.
