Slight COVID-19 uptick in Chicago ‘not a major concern,’ former CDPH director says
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Amid a slight national uptick in COVID-19 cases, Chicago’s public health commissioner said the city is still at a low coronavirus risk level.
America has seen a small increase in hospitalizations, particularly in the Southeast, Chicago Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady said in a weekly public address Tuesday. Many of the city’s COVID-19 metrics are similarly “a little up” from last week, she added.
“Even though we’re seeing some increased cases, we’re not seeing at this point significant increases in hospitalizations or in deaths,” Arwady said. “We’re keeping an eye on COVID, but not a major concern at this point.”
The Tuesday “Ask Arwady” public question-and-answer session was Arwady’s last as the city’s public health commissioner. She was fired Friday afternoon by Mayor Brandon Johnson.
The slight local increase in cases and hospitalizations has continued since Arwady spoke earlier in the week. Average daily hospitalizations rose from 3.00 at the beginning of last week to 5.57 Friday. Black Chicagoans make up over half the recent hospitalizations, according to CDPH data.
At the same time, new lab confirmed cases have increased from 53 per day to 72, CDPH data shows.
The numbers are “remarkably low in the context of where we’ve been with COVID overall” and the uptick is “nothing that is giving me great concern at this point,” Arwady said.
The city has recently received “a few reports” of case clusters at businesses and events, a sign the virus can still easily spread, Arwady said. But Illinois and Chicago are both under the national per capita averages for hospitalizations and are seeing far fewer deaths related to the virus than at other points in the pandemic, she added.
“Early alert” testing doesn’t signal an impending surge, she said. The city is at a “low concern” level in wastewater testing, and variant assessments place the city at a “medium concern” level as two Omicron subvariants Arwady described as “nothing highly concerning” continue to spread.
Different subvariants of the virus’s Omicron strain are behind all the cases spreading across the country, Arwady said.
“It’s all Omicron,” she said, adding that vaccines offer strong protection against the strain.
Arwady showed a map of the country depicting nearly every American county at a “low” COVID-19 risk level.
“This map continues to look really good,” she said. “Even though we are seeing some increase in cases, it’s not in the setting of a new and scary variant. It’s not turning into severe illness.”
She urged older and immunocompromised people living near surges to take precautions. People might also consider carrying masks with them to use if sick or in high-risk situations, she added, comparing masks to umbrellas.
“I carry it with me. I don’t put it up all the time. I was on a very crowded subway this morning. If someone is coughing in my face, I might want to put it on,” Arwady said.
While no official details are available, a new COVID-19 vaccine booster is expected in the fall, she said.
“It’ll be important to get it, especially ahead of winter,” she said. “Here in Chicago, every winter, we have seen a relative COVID increase, and certainly are biggest spikes, after the first part [of the COVID-19 pandemic], have been in the winter every year.”
