EVANSVILLE —At the start of summer COVID-19 cases were trending down. But now cases are rising, in large part because of a new subvariant.
Joe Gries, the administrator of the Vanderburgh County Health Department, said his office is getting more calls from people wanting to know what to do if they get exposed and how long they are supposed to quarantine.
"We are seeing numbers go up the past couple of weeks," Gries said.
He said the current spike is leading to less severe illness than past surges, but it's spreading quickly. That's something local hospital administrators have seen, too.
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As of July 10, there were 26 COVID-19 cases reported in Vanderburgh County — 21 of them first-time infections, according to the state dashboard. The seven-day average stood at 80 cases. Due to home tests, though, those numbers may not reflect the fullest extent of the virus' spread.
Cases are surging in Western Kentucky as well, said Clayton Horton, public health director at the Green River District Health Department.
"We are seeing higher rates of COVID-19 than we had for several months," Horton said. "It's not exactly the same as what we've seen with with previous waves."
Horton said hospitalizations are lower than what they were at the beginning of 2022, or with the delta variant. According to Kentucky's weekly COVID-19 report, as of last week, Henderson County had seen 120 new cases.
Another subvariant
Horton said the rise is most likely due to the omicron subvariant BA.5.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the variant causes more infections and spreads much faster. Omicron has six known offshoots. Of those, the BA.5 is the current dominant strain. That's why CDC lists it as a "variant of concern."
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Dr. Heidi Dunniway, chief regional medical officer for Ascension St. Vincent, said her hospital is seeing a different kind of surge of cases.
"So we do see evidence that it is likely BA.5 increasing pretty dramatically," Dunniway said.
She said they have had more staff out recently due to being sick. It has been a challenge for them, but not quite like it was at the start of the pandemic.
Deaconess Health System President Dr. James Porter, meanwhile, said the current dominant variant of COVID-19 is less severe than before, but looks to be more transmissible.
"Hospitalizations are up slightly," Porter said. "We've seen a wave of ups and downs the past two to three months."
Deaconess Health System currently has 69 COVID patients in the ICU and one on a ventilator. Statewide, there are currently 514 Hoosiers hospitalized with COVID-19 and 16 on ventilators.
As of last week, the state's vaccination dashboard listed 103,122 out of 181,548 Vanderburgh County residents as being fully vaccinated.
Since vaccines became available last year, there have been 394,909 breakthrough cases in Indiana. And there hasn't been a COVID-related death in Vanderburgh County since the end of May, according to state data.
About 27,097 of 45,210 Henderson, Kentucky, residents are fully vaccinated, according to state records. Horton said people still need to get vaccinated and wear a mask when out in public, especially as cases rise.
"I think folks had gone through a period of time where you weren't having to think about COVID-19,' he said. "And with the risk increasing with the number of cases increasing, I think it's a time for people to take notice of the things that they could do to protect themselves."