a wave of new hospitalizations and positive covid-19 cases is signaling the U.S could be in for a late summer virus surge though the CDC readily admits it'll be nothing like past years with confirmed cases at near historic lows still data shows the amount of coronavirus being detected in Wastewater and coveted related emergency room visits are on the rise according to the CDC hospitalizations are up 10 percent it's the sharpest increase since December 2022 and New Jersey is on better footing just 28 cases were reported Statewide as of this morning along with 204 hospitalizations so does it mean a summer wave will escape us Dr Stephanie Silvera Montclair State University epidemiologist joins me to explain Dr Silvera it's good to see you and here we are again talking about maybe another search put this into context because of course we don't want to alarm anyone numbers are still very low right so I think the good news is even though um people presenting at the hospital in emergency rooms and hospitalizations are up covid deaths are still down and trending that way I think that's a testament to how well the vaccines are working and the fact that a lot of us do have different levels of immunity either through vaccination through having been exposed or some combination I do think that the cases are likely higher than any of us really truly know simply because we do not have the testing at the levels that we've had in previous years at this time not only that but if you are vaccinated the symptoms likely are much less severe and so you're probably less likely to go seek medical care if you're fortunate enough to have a mild case right I mean so it's not getting reported is it a new variant though that's potentially driving this increase so there is the variant which is xbb 1.16 which is about um 14 of the cases um there's multiple xbb variants that are circulating and there are always going to be new variants this is simply how viruses um work and survive that they mutate in order to sort of stay ahead of our own immune system the good news is that typically as these viruses mutate they become more transmissible but less virulent meaning they're going to cause milder illness and they're going to be less likely to cause a death okay big big factor there um where were we this time last year I mean compare this for us if we're talking about maybe a handful of cases that are being reported now give us some perspective so I think it's a little bit difficult to compare this year to last year simply because of people are not testing um hospitals may not be testing upon admission anymore and finding some of those incident cases I think overall we are in a better position than we were last year but we need to remember everything is wide open people are traveling fewer people are wearing masks even than last year and so it's not unexpected to see an increase in cases as people travel as they travel internationally and come back home yeah Fair Point okay so remind us then if you are exposed to the virus what on Earth is the protocol these days so the protocol really remains you should test if you think you have covet um you can do that at home test those tend to be working if you test positive you should stay at home and isolate for five days after five days you should wear a mask for the next five days when you're back at work or out in public good point because I think a lot of us have forgotten that the extended the extension of those five days of mask wearing Dr Stephanie Silvera for us thank you as always thank you so much [Music]