Testing is declining, although the tests being completed show a rise in COVID. The average number of tests has decreased by 12.2% nationally, while the average test positivity increased from 4.2% to 4.8%. With less tests, fewer cases are being discovered, leaving the possibility that states are missing potential community spread.
“I worry that we have plateaued, as we lose ground against emerging variants and increase transmission by reopening and relaxing mitigation measures, like restrictions on indoor activities,” Neil J. Sehgal, assistant professor of health policy and management at the University of Maryland School of Public Health, told ABC News.
Cases rising despite more vaccines being administered
More seniors are getting vaccinated, but many health officials across the country are citing increasing infections among young people as the possible reason for rising case rates.
In Massachusetts, where cases have been rising steadily, residents 29 and under account for more than 45% of the state’s positive COVID-19 tests over the last two weeks.
Earlier this week, Chicago’s public health commissioner, Dr. Allison Arwady, also warned that the city’s rising test positivity rate is being pushed up by increasing cases among younger adults ages 18 to 29.
“I am concerned, and I hope everybody is concerned when they look at this data,” Arwady said.
And in Michigan, children ages 10-19 now have the highest COVID-19 case rate, which “is increasing faster than that of other age groups,” said Dr. Sarah Lyon-Callo, director of the MDHHS Bureau of Epidemiology and Population Health.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association reported this week a slight increase in cases was reported last week, after a steady decline in child cases over the past two months.
Experts suggest the rise may be related to the emergence of more contagious coronavirus strains, or variants. “Increasingly, states are seeing a growing proportion of their COVID-19 cases attributed to variants,” Walensky said on Monday.
Although the U.S. is still sequencing very few COVID-19 cases, over 8,300 cases of the variant first found in the U.K., B.1.1.7, has now been discovered in all 50 states. According to the CDC, Michigan currently ranks second in the nation for the most reported cases of the B.1.1.7 variant, with under 1,000 confirmed cases.