To-days headline on Star Tribune is on BA.5 Coronavirus subvariant and reads Coronavirus variant BA.5 makes up 64% of viral load in Twin Cities wastewater. According to the Tribune, although overall virus load in Twin Cities wastewater declined by 1% in the past week, however the BA.5 subvariant “made up 64% of the viral material in sewage samples”.
Stephanie Meyer, supervisor of the Minnesota Department of Health’s COVID epidemiology unit, told the Tribune “We know that we are not catching the same proportion of cases that we did earlier in the pandemic. This has us closely watching for community impacts, especially on our hospitals and health care systems. Though those figures are not as low as we would like, they are holding steady for now.”
Quoting the Mayo Clinic’s pandemic model, the Tribune writes that it had “predicted a rise in COVID-19 cases after the Independence Day weekend but now forecasts little change in infection numbers through the end of July.
The Tribune writes “The fact that both wastewater and case numbers are trending downward is a good short-term sign for Minnesota, although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday found that three counties in the state had high COVID-19 levels and 22 counties had moderate levels. The CDC had only found three counties the prior week with moderate COVID-19 levels, a composite measure based on local case and hospitalizations numbers.”