COVID-19 cases rise in Erie County to level not seen since omicron surge

David Bruce, Erie Times-News
·3 min read

Erie County's number of COVID-19 cases rose last week to a level not seen since February due to a surge fueled by dueling omicron subvariants.

A total of 674 new cases was reported May 9-15 by the Erie County Department of Health, a 66% increase from the previous week and more than triple the number reported just three weeks earlier. The 136 cases reported May 11 was the highest single-day total since Feb. 11.

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Samples taken May 10 from the Erie Wastewater Treatment Plant also show an increase in virus, from the equivalent of about 575 weekly COVID-19 cases to nearly 1,000. It's the highest level recorded since mid-January, the heart of the original omicron surge.

"This surge is being fueled by people who didn't get the first version of omicron and aren't fully vaccinated," said Howard Nadworny, M.D., a Saint Vincent Hospital infectious diseases specialist and county health department adviser. "These subvariants spread easier than original omicron, which spread easier than the previous variants."

The current omicron subvariants seen in Erie County spread faster than previous ones, said Howard Nadworny, M.D., a Saint Vincent Hospital infectious diseases specialist and Erie County Department of Health adviser.
The current omicron subvariants seen in Erie County spread faster than previous ones, said Howard Nadworny, M.D., a Saint Vincent Hospital infectious diseases specialist and Erie County Department of Health adviser.

Hospital admissions have also increased, though not nearly at the same rate as new cases. Twenty-eight Erie County residents with COVID-19 were admitted May 8-14, a 7.1% increase from the previous week, according to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.

The increase in new cases and hospitalizations could be enough to boost the county into a high COVID-19 Communty Level when the CDC updates its map Thursday. The CDC recommends indoor masking in counties with high levels, though the Erie School District is the only local school district that has indicated it would require face masks if the county reaches that level.

More: Some Erie County schools will mask, others won't if COVID-19 community level rises

"School districts aren't really looking for cases," Nadworny said. "To them, there haven't been many cases because kids don't get very sick from this, so cases aren't being reported."

But Nadworny strongly recommended wearing face masks indoors now that cases have increased.

"If you don't want to get COVID, you should wear a mask when you go out, especially if you are going somewhere indoors," Nadworny said. "A mask has been proven to reduce your risk of getting infected, no matter which variant."

Nearly all of the COVID-19 cases in this region of the country are either the BA.2 or the BA.2.12.1 omicron subvariants, the CDC reported Tuesday. These are the subvariants that sparked the initial surge in upstate New York earlier this spring.

More: Second booster? Fifth dose? Who is eligible for additional COVID-19 vaccine

It appears these subvariants don't cause as severe illness as earlier strains such as delta and original COVID-19. No COVID-19 deaths have been reported in the county since the week of April 18-24, when one death occurred.

"People are getting sick, like they have a bad cold, and they feel crappy for about a week," Nadworny said. "They aren't getting as critically ill. I would be less worried if I knew they were also less likely to get long COVID symptoms. We just don't have data on that yet."

Contact David Bruce at dbruce@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ETNBruce.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: COVID-19 cases surge in Erie County, hospitalizations rise slowly