Covid-19: Spike in UK, US hospitalisations linked to new variant Eris

Covid-19 hospital admissions have inched upward in the United States and the United Kingdom since early July in a small-scale echo of the three previous summers. The World Health Organization (WHO) has identified yet another new Covid-19 variant that has been linked to a spike in hospitalisations.

EG.5.1, nicknamed Eris, was added to the WHO SARS-CoV-2 variant monitoring list and has quickly become prevalent in the UK and US.

According to The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), as of July 20, Eris is the second most common variant infecting people in the UK, accounting for roughly 14.55% of cases and growing at 20.51% per week.

With an updated vaccine still months away, this summer bump in new hospitalisations might be concerning, but the number of patients is far lower than before. A look at what we know:

How bad is the spike?

For the week ending July 29, Covid-19 hospital admissions in the US were at 9,056. That's an increase of about 12% from the previous week.

But it's a far cry from past peaks, like the 44,000 weekly hospital admissions in early January, the nearly 45,000 in late July 2022, or the 150,000 admissions during the omicron surge of January 2022.

It’s likely that infections are rising too, but the data is scant. Federal authorities ended the public health emergency in May, so the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and many states no longer track the number of positive test results.

What about deaths?

Since early June, about 500 to 600 people have died each week. The number of deaths appears to be stable this summer, although past increases in deaths have lagged behind hospitalizations.

When is the new vaccine coming?

This fall, officials expect to see updated Covid-19 vaccines that contain one version of the omicron strain, called XBB.1.5. It’s an important change from today’s combination shots, which mix the original coronavirus strain with last year’s most common omicron variants.

It's not clear exactly when people can start rolling up their sleeves for what officials hope is an annual fall Covid-19 shot. Pfizer, Moderna and smaller manufacturer Novavax all are brewing doses of the XBB update but the Food and Drug Administration will have to sign off on each, and the CDC must then issue recommendations for their use.

Dr. Mandy Cohen, the new CDC director, said she expects people will get their Covid-19 shots where they get their flu shots — at pharmacies and at work — rather than at dedicated locations that were set up early in the pandemic as part of the emergency response.

“This is going to be our first fall and winter season coming out of the public health emergency, and I think we are all recognizing that we are living with Covid, flu, and RSV," Cohen told The Associated Press last week. “But the good news is we have more tools than ever before.”

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