COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations have risen steadily since June in New Jersey, outpacing last summer’s numbers and reflecting a nationwide trend, state data shows. But serious cases remain low in the state despite the increase in transmission. The number of COVID patients on ventilators has barely risen out of the single digits each day for much of the summer.
COVID numbers have been on the rise across the U.S., a trend that even saw President Joe Biden become infected in July. The numbers in New Jersey and nationally are still far below the annual peak in late December and early January each year, when transmission is greatest due to holiday travel and more time spent indoors together.
While experts thought COVID would behave as a seasonal virus such as influenza and RSV, that may no longer be the case, said Dr. Stanley Weiss, an infectious disease specialist at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. The emergence of new variants — such as the KP.3.1.1 subvariant — where a strain of COVID mutates into a slightly different form, can cause transmission to increase regardless of the time of year. To read the full story.