Experts think Covid-19 is the most transmissible variant of the Pandemic.
This time, the public health authorities are not releasing information.
In Chicago, where the Covid warning level was raised to "high" last week, the city's top doctor said there was no reason for residents to allow the virus to control their lives. A surge within a surge is what the state health director in Louisiana described as a new rise in Covid cases.
The public health officer in King County said on Thursday that they would prefer the public to wear a mask He said that they wouldn't be able to have an infinite number of mandates.
The latest surge, driven by a spike of BA.5 subvariant cases in this country since May, has sent rising infections in at least 40 states. More than 40,000 people are in American hospitals with the coronaviruses on an average day, thanks to a 20 percent increase in hospitalizations in the past two weeks.
More than two years after the start of the Pandemic, public health officials are not making a lot of noise about the situation. The number of deaths is rising, but only modestly. Most Americans are meeting a new Covid wave with a collective shrug, shunning masks, joining crowds indoors and moving on from the endless barrage of virus
The commissioner of the Chicago health department said she would wait to see if hospitals became strained before considering another mandate. When there is a significant change, I want to save the requirements.
A lack of data is making it difficult for the country to understand this wave. Since the beginning of the Pandemic, there has been very little information about the number of infections in the US. The publicly reported data has become scarce and spotty as public testing sites have closed and at- home testing has become common.
The outlines of a new wave are obvious.
Louisiana's state health officer and medical director said "you don't have to count every raindrop to know it's raining" Right now, it is pouring.
The health department in that state analyzes a wide range of data to track the spread of the disease, including case counts, samples from a growing network of wastewater testing sites, test positivity rate and hospitalization metrics.
At least two-thirds of new cases in the United States have been caused by the BA.5 subvariant, which was first detected in South Africa and spread to a number of European countries.
The health department in San Antonio has seen a rise in cases for the last six weeks. She said that the low number of deaths so far suggests that the nation is entering a newer and less lethal stage of the Pandemic.
She said that they are not where they were before.
The current wave has less hospitalizations and deaths than previous waves. Over 159,000 people were hospitalized during the peak of the Omicron surge.
The high transmissibility of BA.5 makes it hard to predict the months ahead. In the last few weeks, words of caution from national health leaders have increased.
Even as federal health authorities reiterated calls for people to test for Covid before attending large indoor gatherings or visiting especially vulnerable people, they are striking a delicate balance, telling Americans that while they do not need to upend their lives, they must pay attention.
Anthony S. Fauci, President Biden's chief medical adviser, said at a White House news briefing that "we should not let it disrupt our lives" We need to deal with it, but we can't deny it.
California has stood out as an exception due to the fact that it has avoided issuing new virus restrictions. There, public health authorities have issued warnings.
Experts said the warnings were spurred by data. More than half of the Covid tests administered at its California stores have returned positive results, according to Walgreens. This surge could be the biggest yet, according to surveys.
There have been 100 deaths in Los Angeles County from the coronaviruses in the last week. More than 400 people died in the county during the winter Omicron surge.
There will be an indoor mask mandate in Los Angeles by the end of this month, according to officials. The public health director in the county said that a slight increase in masking would help slow the spread of the disease.
I dislike wearing that mask. I don't like the idea of accidentally sending something to someone else. That is my biggest fear, that we are so focused on getting rid of this virus, that we are getting lulled into a false sense of security.
According to Charles Chiu, an infectious-disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, there is no evidence that BA.5 causes more severe disease in patients than other Omicron variants. He's worried that the variant could be unstoppable because it's so infectious and can evade the protections of vaccine and prior infections.
He said it looked as if we weren't able to control it.
Dr. Chiu sympathizes with the plight of government officials who are trying to stop the spread of the disease. In parts of the country where people used to be most willing to go along with new directives, they are up against a public that doesn't like it. Adherence to masking rules is becoming more spotty in places where Covid measures are mandatory.
There is an impossible task for public health officers.
Positive tests are up in New York City. Health officials have resisted reissuing mask mandates, and many residents have said they were not worried about it. The city doesn't require proof of vaccinations to enter restaurants anymore.
In Louisiana, officials have seen a rise in the number of people being hospitalized with Covid, but they say the numbers are still lower than they were in the past.
Dr. Kanter said that she felt more confident that she could protect herself.
During the height of the Delta wave in Louisiana, about 20 percent of hospitalized Covid patients were on ventilators. During the state's initial Omicron surge, that figure dropped to 10 percent.
For people who are most at risk of severe illness from Covid, a sense that public health warnings have lessened was not comforting.
A woman from Texas was diagnosed with breast cancer. With case counts rising in South Texas, she now fears that an infectious disease could ruin her life.
She has received all of the vaccines and boosters available to her, she said, and now wears a surgical mask in public and rarely leaves the house.
She hoped that people opened their eyes. We should have kept our masks on. It's not over.
Even though some cities have taken precautions against Covid, the latest surge has not caused a lot of concern.
In Berkeley, Calif., Jeff Shepler, the general manager of the Spanish Table, a specialty shop selling Iberian wine and food, recently attended a Pearl Jam concert at the Oakland Coliseum and does not hesitate to shake hands.
He said it was tiring to wear a mask all the time. At this point in my life, I have both the vaccine and Covid. I think I'm pretty safe.
The people reporting from Chicago, San Francisco, and San Antonio were Julie and Thomas. Reporting was contributed by several people.
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