The current COVID wave in the Charleston Tri-county area may leave last summer鈥檚 Delta-driven surge in the dust, with a projected peak in early to mid-July.鈥淲e鈥檙e in Omicron-land now,鈥� said , leader of the COVID-19 tracking team at the 石榴视频黄色版.

鈥淟ast year it was Delta, a different strain. Now we鈥檙e just getting into more and more highly transmissible strains. It's large numbers of people getting minor infections and reinfections.鈥�

The terrain in Omicron-land is turbulent. Reported COVID cases were up 10% for the Charleston Tri-county area in Sweat鈥檚 team鈥檚 weekly update, hitting 34 cases per day per 100,000 people. It鈥檚 been going up for weeks at varying rates. 

Adding to the shifting surface: when you factor in the results from home tests that aren鈥檛 reported to the state, the numbers are much higher, Sweat said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 always been undercounted. But it鈥檚 super undercounted now. I mean like 10 times undercounted. That suggests we鈥檙e already higher than the Delta wave.鈥�

He based that undercount estimate on modeling from Johns Hopkins University and the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, which the  reported on last week.

When it comes to how long this wave will last in South Carolina, Sweat looked to what has happened in other states. Statewide, South Carolina is seeing 26 reported cases per day per 100,000 people.

鈥淭his wave hit New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and New England first. They鈥檙e now seeing declines or flattening. New York was one of the first; it got up to 46 cases per 100,000 people per day. New Jersey got up to 55. Massachusetts got up to 50. So that kind of gives you a benchmark for what we will probably see. We鈥檙e likely four weeks away from the peak if our peak has a very similar timeframe.鈥�

Another measure of COVID鈥檚 impact, hospitalizations, is going up 鈥� but fortunately, the actual numbers are small. 鈥淚n the Tri-county area, in all hospitals in the past week, the percentage of beds being used for COVID patients went up 67%. These are not ICU beds. They鈥檙e just standard beds. So up to 1.5% of all beds are used now for people with COVID. That鈥檚 not a big number, but it鈥檚 growing. That tells you this trend has been going on for weeks because it takes weeks for this to get caught up in here,鈥� Sweat said.

鈥淎nd then the number of weekly admissions has more than doubled in the past week. So it鈥檚 still a small number, seven, eight people per week, but it鈥檚 growing.鈥�

He said it鈥檚 likely to continue to grow at a time when pandemic precautions are not widely taken. 鈥淚 just think we鈥檙e in a bit of a unique time because people are being asked to decide their risk-taking mitigation. I don鈥檛 sense that there鈥檚 very much awareness in the community of the fact that we are in a surge. I think it鈥檚 largely because it鈥檚 undercounted.鈥�

But Sweat was encouraged by a development on the vaccine front that could help smooth the landscape in the near future. 鈥淣ew Moderna trial results just came out. They tweaked their vaccine to be a combination, called a bivalent vaccine. It combines the same old vaccine that was specific to the original version of COVID-19, with part of the vaccine that is very specific to Omicron. And it had a huge impact,鈥� he said.

鈥淚t protected people twice as well as the old vaccine and with antibodies. So that would protect you from getting infected. I think by end of summer, we鈥檙e going to see that vaccine. That could start moving us into that pattern of updating the vaccine regularly, like the flu shot, and every year you get a booster with the new variant. That was really good news.鈥�