COVID is surging again. Heres what to know and why experts encourage caution

Jessica Malaty Rivera, Infectious Disease Epidemiologist, De Beaumont Foundation:

To be honest, it's not quite unusual, the virus that causes COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2 continues to evolve as more and more people become infected, and the virus makes copies of itself. It mutates, it changes, it gets better at evading our immune systems and making people sick.

What's encouraging is that because of our hybrid immunity in the population between previous infections and vaccination, not as many people are becoming seriously ill and dying, though we are seeing hospitalizations continue to increase as more and more people become infected.

The fact that it's back, the fact that we're seeing a surge, though, is not a surprise. In fact, it doesn't quite actually have the same seasonality as other viruses like flu or RSV, where we kind of see COVID come every few months in these big surges.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7sa7SZ6arn1%2Bjsri%2Fx6isq2ejnby4e8KoraKcXZ7Abr%2FUq56ippdirqityKdkoZ2imsBuw8eaq2asn2K4r7vWZpinnF2stbp5xLGnnqqkqHqmusKorKuZl5p6pK3UraCopg%3D%3D