The latest omicron variants to enter the U.S. landscape — BA.4 and BA. 5 — have taken over and are likely keeping COVID-19 statistics elevated.
And, Berks County remains a low-risk COVID county in the assessment of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention though it is again nearly encircled by counties that have been elevated to moderate risk.
They are Chester, Montgomery, Lehigh and Schuylkill. Lebanon and Lancaster remain low risk, as they have been the entire second omicron surge.
The second omicron surge is now a composite of several of the variants from the original omicron.
Berks was a minus 30 cases for the week from the previous week in the bouncing ball that has become the weekly update of the Pennsylvania Department of Health Early Warning Monitoring Dashboard.
The positivity rate in Berks for the week was 15%, a figure that would have caused alarm among health officials in the pandemic phases of the disease.
Pennsylvania overall was a minus 541 cases for the week with a positivity rate of 14%.
The second omicron surge began in early May in Berks, across Pennsylvania and the nation. The case numbers peaked late that month in Berks and fell off but remain elevated at about 60% of the peak.
And, that’s ditto for hospitalizations and deaths. Health officials have urged the public to remain vigilant about COVID.
The health department has expanding testing options at COVID community-based testing sites operated in partnership with AMI Expeditionary Healthcare, including the Berks site in Bern Township.
AMI is offering three forms of free testing: point-of-care tests where tests are performed and results are analyzed on-site; the distribution of at-home antigen testing; and continued administration of the nasal passage swab PCR testing.
The Bern Township site is at 2561 Bernville Road.
The site is expected to be open at least until Sept. 4, running 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday.
Officials said the Do Your Part Berks website remains a good source of information: https://www.doyourpartberks.com.
Nationally, the seven-day average of cases is 106,021 in the latest CDC update. The seven-day average first peaked in the latest omicron surge at 110,666 on May 26. The average was briefly above 113,000 as July opened but has dipped.
The official case numbers are about an eighth of the peak of the initial omicron surge that started the year.
But health officials are concerned that an accurate picture of the spread isn’t available due to widespread at-home testing and no testing.
Rise of more variants
BA.5 makes up 53.6% of the cases nationally with BA.4 at 16.5%, according to the CDC.
The hearty BA.2.12.1 that drove the early phases of the second omicron surge is at 27.2% of the cases nationally.
In the mid-Atlantic, BA.5 holds a slim lead over BA.2.12.1 at 41.4% to 38%.
There have no recent reports of more variants.
Typically the wave subsides if there are no new variants, which is what happened in summer 2020, summer 2021 and most recently in March as cases, hospitalizations and deaths slowed to a trickle.
More Berks numbers
Other statistics for Berks from the state and the CDC:
• 22: Hospital admissions in the past week, about double a week ago but roughly the same as the two weeks before that.
• 1,866: Tests recorded in the past week, down slightly.
• 160: Residents getting “fully vaccinated” in the past week for a total of 250,228 over the entire 19-month episode of inoculation opportunities.
• 208: Residents getting either their first booster or a third full dose for the immunocompromised in the past week, for a total of 118,354.
• 322: Residents getting either a second booster or a fourth full dose for the immunocompromised in the past week, for a total of 20,789.
Berks has a population of 429,000. The vaccination numbers are down to a trickle, with the latest figures the lowest weekly totals yet in each category.
The state and national figures are similarly low.
Health officials have said that the moniker “fully vaccinated” is nearly meaningless now that it has been many months since most in that category received the shots, and the protection wanes.
The vaccination figures continue to be further muddied as the weeks pass since people who die of any cause are not purged from the totals and the CDC stops counting when an age group total of vaccinations reaches 95% of the estimated population in that group.
A year ago on July 9, 2021, Berks hospitals reported that they had no COVID patients. That lasted two days. By mid-August, the delta variant surge began ramping up.
Also a year ago, the state health department issued revised figures for vaccinations, cutting duplications from the rolls to the tune of about 600,000 statewide that included about 20,000 in Berks.
There were similar lesser purges of data later in 2021 but none have been announced in 2022.
Source: Berkshire mont
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