A rise in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in California has prompted at least one state leader to recommend that people wear masks indoors. The state currently has high coronavirus levels in sewage, according to the CDC.
COVID in wastewater
Wastewater surveillance is a tool used by public health officials to track the presence of viruses like coronavirus.
“Wastewater has been a great breakthrough for us in public health surveillance since the start of the pandemic,” Matt Willis, former Marin County health officer, told Straight Arrow News. “It’s really the best way to see how active the virus is in a given community.”
That tool has shown a recent increase in the virus.
“Overall wastewater concentrations of SARS-CoV-2 are currently increasing, and it is not yet clear when wastewater activity will peak this summer,” the California Department of Public Health said in a statement to Straight Arrow News.
California is one of 21 states with “high” or “very high” levels of coronavirus in wastewater. However, it has still not reached the same levels as the last couple of summers when the virus usually peaks.
“Current wastewater concentrations are about 20 percent lower than peak concentrations during the 2023 summer wave (which peaked in late August), and current concentrations are about 50 percent lower than peak concentrations during the 2024 summer wave (which peaked in early August),” the department said.
The department also told SAN they’re continually seeing an increase in the latest variant known as XFG or “Stratus,” which is now the “dominant variant.”
This variant is the latest in a string of variants since the pandemic.
“It’s important for us to have the ability to do the molecular testing to diagnose new variants when they emerge, in case those actually are more variant, meaning that they might cause more severe illness or more transmissible, meaning more people would get infected,” Willis said. “But for the general public, I’m not seeing a lot of reason why people need to be too concerned about one variant or the next.”
The highest levels of coronavirus in wastewater can be found in the West and the South.
COVID cases rising
The same can be said for the number of COVID-19 cases, with the CDC saying California’s epidemic trend is “likely growing.”
For the week ending Aug. 23, 12% of COVID-19 tests in California came back positive. That’s up from 6% just one month earlier.
“COVID-19 looks like it’s not just seasonal,” Willis said. “It’s actually twice a year. And if you look back at the last like three years, there’s pretty clear waves in the summertime and in the wintertime, which is different than, say, like RSV or influenza virus, which are clearly winter seasonal viruses where it’s incredibly quiet and flat during the summertime.”
Some of the state’s largest cities in counties saw similar rates of increase, with Los Angeles County’s positive test rate up nearly 6%, Orange County up 9% and San Francisco up 2% over a recent four-week period.
Meanwhile, hospital admissions in California from coronavirus remain low but have increased in recent weeks.
The CDPH shows 3.6 COVID-19 hospital admissions per 100,000 people for the week ending Aug. 23. That’s up 0.5 from the week before.
The number of deaths from the virus remains very low.
“It’s important to see this in perspective,” Willis said. “We’ve obviously come a long way since 2020. Even in my community, in Marin County where I was health officer, we were seeing dozens of deaths every month. It’s been a while since we’ve seen any in our community. At the same time, we’re still seeing people coming into the hospital. We’re still seeing emergency room visits increasing for our youngest residents, so it’s still a threat to us.”
Mask request
While the numbers are nowhere close to pandemic levels, some public officials have called on people to once again wear masks indoors.
Officials in Yolo County, which includes part of Sacramento, want people to take extra precautions to prevent transmission.
“California is experiencing a summer COVID wave,” Dr. Aimee Sisson, Yolo County Health Officer, said in a statement. “Based on current wastewater levels of the virus that causes COVID-19, I recommend that everybody in West Sacramento wear a mask when they are around others in indoor public spaces. I also recommend that people in the rest of Yolo County wear masks when they are around others indoors if they are 65 or older, have a weakened immune system, have an underlying medical condition that puts them at a greater risk of severe COVID-19, or spend time around people who fall into these categories.”
Masks became very politicized during the pandemic, and Willis said wearing one is a personal choice, but science is science.
“The fact is that as a tool, a mask is an effective way of preventing infection, period,” Willis said.
COVID vaccination
The county’s Health and Human Services Agency also recommends vaccination as the most effective way to prevent severe disease and death.
“High vaccination rates translate to lower mortality at the community level, and for an individual, it’s the same,” Willis said. “If you’re vaccinated, you’re much less likely to end up in a hospital and that’s just been proven over and over again. That is not a political statement. That is just a scientific reality.”
This all comes at a time when federal health officials continue to voice their opposition to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy and his views on vaccinations.
“I think it’s very concerning and discouraging that somehow someone who is a vaccine skeptic was able to find his way to the highest position of power in our science infrastructure nationally,” Willis said.
