Here's where COVID wastewater levels are increasing in Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- COVID-19 is still here and as people are letting their guard down, COVID cases are still being reported across the Bay Area.
In the last two weeks, Bay Area scientists have noticed a small COVID-19 uptick.
VIDEO: Bay Area doctor believes COVID-19 to become endemic this year
"The incident rate or the number of infections are relatively low but SARS-CoV-2 is still present in wastewater indicating the virus is still circulating and at a few of our sites in the Bay Area we are seeing that levels have been increasing over the last two weeks," said Alexandria Boehm, Professor of Environmental Engineering at Stanford University.
Professor Boehm and her team are actively collecting wastewater samples from 29 sites across the Bay Area. Wastewater sample detection is crucial since fewer people are self-reporting COVID.
"We are noticing an uptick in Palo Alto, as well as in San Mateo County," said Professor Boehm.
Our ABC7 News COVID Tracker which takes data from the California Department of Public Health shows an overall decrease in cases and deaths in the Bay Area.
See the tracker below to find out how COVID-19 cases are trending in your county.
App users: For a better experience, click here to view the full trend tracker in a new window
Dr. Chris Colwell, Chief of Emergency Medicine at Zuckerberg SF General Hospital, confirmed hospitalizations are still happening but not at the rate of this time last year.
"They are largely people with underlying medical conditions particularly things like Type 2 diabetes and others or older who may have underlying health conditions but even in that group they are not as sick as they were two years ago," said Dr. Colwell.
To put it in perspective by the end of June there were around 200 hospitalizations in the Bay Area due to COVID. In late June of 2022, there were almost 700 hospitalizations. That's three times more than now.
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