As the new FLiRT family of coronavirus subvariants takes hold, early signs are pointing to a summer jump in cases.
So how bad could it get?
Experts so far are cautiously optimistic, saying the numbers are within expectations and there currently are no signs of any red flags.
But the new variants are a reminder that the coronavirus remains a major health risk for some, even as much of the world has tried to move past the pandemic. While California’s COVID numbers look relatively good, officials say FLiRT’s rise shows the need to stay vigilant with basic safety measures.
“For the majority of people, it is not a big deal. But for some people, it is a big deal,” said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, a UC San Francisco infectious disease specialist, speaking of COVID-19. “I’m always cautious around the elderly, particularly as their immunity drops, with more cases.”
And COVID can still cause life-altering symptoms for younger adults too.
“COVID is not a regular flu or cold,” said Dr. Elizabeth Hudson, regional chief of infectious disease at Kaiser Permanente Southern California. “It can have long-lasting effects, with long COVID symptoms, that make it very different from other viruses we encounter,” adding that people in their 30s and 40s seem to be more likely to get long COVID.
In terms of the new subvariants, experts generally believe they are more contagious than earlier strains, which explains why they’re crowding out winter’s dominant JN.1.
And unlike the annual fall/winter cold-and-flu season, COVID has presented itself as having two peaks every year — with one of them in the summer.
California’s COVID waves last summer and winter were still big enough to cause significant disruptions, including outbreaks in schools, among sports teams and at Hollywood studios, while some businesses saw higher numbers of workers calling in sick.
And the risk can remain severe for those who are older or immunocompromised. COVID-19 is still killing people at a higher rate than the flu, with more than 43,000 deaths reported since Oct. 1, compared to an estimated 25,000 for the flu. Based on CDC data in February, more than 95% of those hospitalized with COVID-19 had not received the updated vaccine, which was introduced in September.
But for COVID-19 to become a health scare again, there would have to be a distinct change in hospitalizations and deaths. COVID deaths have continued to decline: For the 12-month period that ended at the start of spring, there were about 66,000 deaths nationally, half as many as the prior comparable period.
And that is significantly down from the prior year, when there were 438,000 COVID-19 deaths between spring 2021 and winter 2021–22. There were 554,000 deaths for the pandemic year that began in spring 2020.
