‘Worse than last year’: Medical professional weighs in on Mass. COVID spike

BOSTON — Local medical professionals and the CDC confirmed a spike in COVID cases this July – likely to roll into August.

According to the state’s website, roughly 1,800 COVID cases were reported in the first week of July. During the last week of July, that number rose to about 2,800.

Dr. Paul Sax, Harvard Medical professor and Medical Director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, told Boston 25 Sunday the spike isn’t surprising.

“It seems somewhat worse than last year,” Sax added. “The variants changed … We’ve had quite a heat wave. As a result, people move indoors.”

He continued, “The virus has also proven that it will change in time.”

The CDC reported that Massachusetts was one of many states in the “very high” range.

Sax continued, “It may seem that each year it’s terrible, but part of it is we’re not used to summertime viruses like this … Even though COVID is common, it’s not taking as many lives as it did the first two years.”

He urged those who are older, immunocompromised, or dealing with a lung or heart condition to still take extra caution against the virus.

With Fall right around the corner, Sax said there’s no reason to believe we’d take a step back to pandemic, lockdown precautions.

He finished, “I don’t think with our level of immunity we’ve built up as a population from vaccines and getting COVID previously, we’ll ever see anything like that.”

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