CDC: New COVID-19 Hospitalizations Increase

New COVID-19 hospitalizations increased last week after mostly trending downward or remaining stable since early September, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Over 16,200 new COVID-19 hospital admissions were reported last week – an increase of more than 8% over the week prior. Experts will surely be monitoring the jump as it could potentially signal the start of a widely expected fall and winter coronavirus wave.

The CDC said in its weekly respiratory virus summary that COVID-19 activity “remains elevated.”

“COVID-19 test positivity (percentage of tests conducted that were positive) has not changed nationally, and emergency department visits and hospitalizations increased slightly,” the CDC said in a post. “ A group of omicron variants (XBB and its sublineages) are the predominant lineages detected in the U.S., with HV.1 being most common. CDC continues to monitor HV.1, EG.5 and all other lineages.”

HV.1 was responsible for 29% of new COVID-19 cases in recent weeks, according to estimates from the CDC. It’s the most prominent strain circulating in the U.S.

Updated COVID-19 vaccines are expected to work on HV.1, which is a descendant of EG.5. Initial rollout of the shots was hampered by availability and insurance issues, but U.S. health officials say those problems have now mostly been resolved.

Nearly 15% of American adults have received the updated COVID-19 shot, according to a survey from the federal government. Uptake of the flu shot among adults, for comparison, is more than 36%, according to the survey.

While the COVID-19 vaccine coverage so far is comparable to the last updated COVID-19 vaccine, it’s still lower than experts were hoping for ahead of the holiday season.

A new survey from KFF published Friday found that over half of vaccinated adults who haven’t gotten the latest shot cite not being worried about getting COVID-19 as their main reason for not rolling up their sleeves.