COVID summer wave emerging with 30 states reporting increases in cases: CDC

COVID cases are rising nationally, with high levels of the infectious disease appearing in wastewater in Western states, according to recent data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Cases are growing in more than 30 states, with no decline across the country, the federal agency reports.

Recent documentation and estimates of COVID cases emerge from recorded ER visits, and COVID deaths, both numbers climbing in the last week, NBC News reported. 

California is a hot spot for the increasing rates, with positive COVID tests rising from 3% to 7.5% in the last month, the news outlet reported.

Fourteen other states are listed by the CDC with high or very-high coronavirus levels in sewage: Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wyoming.

“It looks like the summer wave is starting to begin,” Dr. Thomas Russo, chief of infectious diseases at the University at Buffalo Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, told NBC News.

The forecasted summer wave is expected to develop amid a medley of unfamiliar new variants concurrent with the rise in infections – KP.2 and KP.3 and LB.1.

Other factors like the heat wave and large gatherings for Independence Day could contribute to the rising infections.

“The virus already appears to be evolving beyond what’s going to be the fall boosters, and it’s only June,” Barouch told NBC.