Republished with permission from Lucian K. Truscott IV

School districts in Kentucky and Texas are closing due to “widespread illness,” including cases of COVID, seasonal flu and other respiratory diseases including strep. Schools in Lee and Magoffin counties switched to virtual classes yesterday and today. In Magoffin County, attendance fell more than 15 percent by Wednesday. “Lee County had a surge of cases and attendance dropped below the threshold needed to stay open, so they closed,” said Scott Lockard, public health director for a school district in the county. He added that it’s unclear how many cases of illness are due to COVID, because home tests are not being reported to local health departments.

In Texas, Runge Independent School District, located about 50 miles southeast of San Antonio, sent out a letter to parents this week announcing that all schools would be closed from August 22 to 29 due to an uptick in COVID cases. Extracurricular activities are also cancelled. According to the Texas Department of Health and Human Services, new and probable cases of COVID have increased statewide by 29 percent recently. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reporting that nationwide, hospitalizations due to COVID have increased for the fifth consecutive week. New hospitalizations were up 21.6 percent last week alone, according to the CDC.

Tracy and I came down with cases of COVID two weeks ago. My sister Mary, who lives in Bellevue, Washington, just outside of Seattle, contracted the disease last Saturday. Because she was running a temperature of 103.7, she was taken by EMTs in an ambulance to a nearby emergency room. She texted today, “If you wonder, should I call 911, start dialing. They get paid to show up. If nothing is wrong, everyone is happy.”

But something is wrong. The so-called COVID uptick is real. A nursing home near our home in Milford this week announced that no visitors will be allowed in their skilled nursing facility as of last Friday. Additionally, staff at the facility has begun following all safety protocols, including masking and isolation of patients testing positive for COVID.

The Washington Post reported today that cases due to a new variant called BA.2.86 have been spotted in Michigan, Virginia, and Ohio. The variant is said to have as many as 30 mutations in its so-called spike proteins, which are involved in the way the virus attacks cells, enabling the virus to infect people more easily. “This is a radical change of the virus, like what happened with omicron, which caught a lot of people defenseless,” Eric Topol told the Post. He is director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute. “Even if they had a vaccine or prior infection, it could still get into them and infect them again or for the first time. We are facing that again.”

So far, COVID tests are effective in detecting the new variant, and it responds to current treatments by medications like Paxlovid. BA.2.86 has shown up in wastewater testing in Ohio and Switzerland, leading experts to believe that the new strain of the COVID virus has already spread worldwide. It has not shown signs of causing worse symptoms than earlier variants of the disease. It is unknown at this time if the new COVID booster, which will be available at the end of next month, will protect against BA.2.86.

The COVID story may be anecdotal for the moment, but when hospitalizations start shooting up in national figures from the CDC and schools start closing within two weeks of reopening for the new school year, and when your own family members a continent away are getting sick at the same time you are, it’s pretty clear something is happening out there, and it isn’t good.

Tracy and I have contracted COVID twice in the last two years. I’m not an alarmist, but the situation is certainly getting my attention. Watch for early symptoms like fever, coughing, runny nose, headaches and the like. If you get symptoms, isolate and take care of yourself. It’s not fun—no disease is—but you can get through it.

And get the new booster even if you have to stand in line at your local CVS or Walgreens. Trust me, you will be glad you did.