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COVID’s future: mini-waves rather than seasonal surges

Three years after the start of the pandemic, SARS-CoV-2 shows no signs of settling into a seasonal pattern of spread, like influenza has.
  1. Ewen Callaway
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Whether you call it a surge, a spike, a wave or perhaps just a wavelet, there are signs of a rise in SARS-CoV-2 infections — again. A growing proportion of tests in some countries are coming back positive, and new variants, most notably a lineage called XBB.1.16, are pushing aside older strains, fuelling some of the uptick in cases.

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Nature 617, 229-230 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-01437-8

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 04 May 2023: An earlier version of this article misstated the timing of COVID-19 cases analysed in a new preprint.

References

  1. Karyakarte, R. P. et al. Preprint at medRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.04.22.23288965 (2023).

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