A new map from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reveals the regions of the U.S. where COVID-19 cases are on the rise.
For the week ending November 23, around 4.5 percent of COVID-19 around the country came back positive, in is a 0.3 percent increase from the week prior.
Some regions had higher rates of test positivity than others, with a 6.3 percent positivity rate across Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.
There was a 5.7 percent positivity rate across Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming; a 4.6 percent rate across Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio and Wisconsin; and a 4 percent rate across Arizona, California, Hawaii and Nevada.
Furthermore, there was a 3.9 percent positive rate in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont; a 3.4 percent rate in New Jersey and New York; and a 3 percent rate in Delaware, D.C., Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. All other remaining states had a 2.5 percent rate of test positivity.
CDC data shows that, across the country, 0.5 percent of visits to the ER were associated with COVID-19, a decrease of 1.3 percent from the week before. New Mexico had the highest rate of COVID-19–associated ER visits, at 1.6 percent, followed by Arizona at 1.5, South Dakota at 1.1 percent, North Dakota at 1.0 percent and Colorado at 0.9 percent.
COVID-19 nucleic acid amplification tests (NAATs), like PCR tests, detect the virus's genetic material to see if someone is infected. The sample is first treated to extract the virus's RNA, which is then turned into DNA using a special enzyme.
Read more
Oceans on Venus may never have existed
Mysterious dark matter may predate big bang
New tuberculosis cure could come from fungi found in US bogs
Many copies of a specific part of the virus's DNA are then made using a process called amplification, which makes it easier to detect even tiny amounts of the virus. As the copies are made, a special dye lights up if the virus is present, signaling a positive result.
There were 161 COVID-19 deaths during the week ending November 23, down from the 372 deaths the week prior, and 485 deaths and 560 during the two weeks before that.
This comes as wastewater levels of SARS-CoV-2—the virus that causes COVID-19—levels were found by the CDC to be "very high" in New Mexico for the period November 10 to November 16, 2024, and "high" in Arizona, Kentucky, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and South Dakota.
"SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is constantly changing and accumulating mutations in its genetic code over time. New variants of SARS-CoV-2 are expected to continue to emerge. Some variants will emerge and disappear, while others will emerge and continue to spread and may replace previous variants," the CDC said in a statement.
CDC data shows that for the two weeks before November 23, the subvariant KP.3.1.1 represented 44 percent of total COVID infections, with the new XEC variant making up 38 percent and MC.1 totaling 6 percent.
This roughly tracks with the variants found in wastewater as of November 16, with KP.3.1.1 making up 34 percent, XEC making up 21 percent, and KP.3 making up 18 percent.
"There is no evidence, and no particular reason to believe, that XEC causes different symptoms than all the other SARS-CoV-2 currently in circulation," Francois Balloux, a professor of computational systems biology at University College London in England, previously told Newsweek.
"XEC is not expected to cause more (or less) severe symptoms than other lineages currently in circulation."
Is there a health problem that's worrying you? Do you have a question about COVID-19? Let us know via health@newsweek.com. We can ask experts for advice, and your story could be featured in Newsweek.
