As Labor Day marks the unofficial end of summer, it appears we are also entering a new season with COVID.
After a busy summer due to FLiRT subvariants, a COVID lull is setting in.
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"They're more transmissible and we ended up having high surges," UCSF Infectious Diseases Specialist Dr. Monica Gandhi said. "So how do we monitor how people are doing? We can see in the wastewater the degree that COVID is circulating. And it's gone way down."
This summer was one of the periods of highest transmission yet, according to wastewater data in Santa Clara County.
The peaks were dramatically higher than last summer, rivaling, even surpassing, numbers from 2022 when the highly-contagious Omicron variant surfaced.
Now, as the summer wraps up, we are seeing steep declines in wastewater numbers.
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"The summer was driven by these particular FLiRT variants, though now we have a lot of immunity to it," Dr. Gandhi said. "A lot of people got COVID and a lot of people got the old booster before these new boosters came out about a week ago, and people are getting the new booster."
Dr. Gandhi says that will make a major difference heading into the cold and flu season.
Due to the amount of immunity from infection and vaccines, along with the new boosters, the CDC recently predicted the COVID outlook this winter may be better than last. And Dr. Gandhi thinks it may not even be as bad as this summer.
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"All together, all that immunity, hopefully means a better winter than we did last summer with lower rates of cases," Dr. Gandhi said. "We're going to have the other viruses, flu and RSV, but hopefully COVID will have done its work, unfortunately, during the summer."
She says it's important for people to get the new booster, especially the elderly, the immunocompromised and those with comorbidities, because the reality is COVID is still unpredictable and immunity is our best defense.
"The variants arrive very quickly with COVID, so we may not, with COVID, end up seeing the same respiratory virus pattern of just fall and winter if we get new variants, say next spring or next summer," Dr. Gandhi said. "So, we always have to be alert to COVID."
But for now, it appears we have a period of COVID calm in the community.
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