VA marks millionth COVID case as officials warn health threat persists

Veterans Affairs medical officers recorded their millionth identified COVID-19 case Wednesday, a milestone that division consultants say serves as a reminder that the virus stays a public well being risk even years after the peak of the worldwide pandemic.

“COVID-19 continues to be essentially the most vital viral respiratory an infection in our group,” stated Dr. Gio Baracco, senior advisor for the Veterans Well being Administration’s Nationwide Infectious Ailments Service. “It’s nonetheless inflicting a big variety of sicknesses, even hospitalizations and a few deaths, though clearly not as many as we had firstly of the pandemic.”

Greater than 1,700 days have handed since VA officers introduced their first identified case of the virus on March 4, 2020. A minimum of 26,670 people linked to VA well being care have died from COVID-related circumstances over the past 4 years, a median of about 16 a day.

However the majority of these instances got here within the first two years of the pandemic, which was declared over by federal well being consultants in Could 2023.

Because the begin of 2024, VA has recorded solely about 67,000 new instances (about 7% of the overall identified by the division) and 1,100 COVID-related deaths (about 4% of the division’s whole).

Baracco credited these enhancements to advances in vaccines and coverings lately.

“We’re not addressing COVID-19 in disaster mode anymore,” he stated. “Due to the instruments and the give attention to prevention that we have now presently, we have now been capable of mitigate the severity and the influence in most individuals.

“However not in all individuals.”

Sufferers within the VA well being care system stay susceptible to extra severe issues from COVID-19 due to their age — most are usually older than the typical American — and different present medical points — most have a tendency to produce other service-connected circumstances — Baracco stated.

That’s the primary motive VA continues to trace energetic instances at tons of of division websites each day, even after most federal monitoring of COVID instances was shut down on the formal finish of the nationwide pandemic.

“COVID-19 has not but established itself as a seasonal illness just like the flu has, so it’s not as predictable,” Baracco stated. “One thing is basically thought of endemic when it turns into predictable. Proper now, with COVID, we’re seeing not less than two waves annually, generally three per 12 months.”

He foresees VA persevering with to trace virus instances for not less than a number of extra years, offering a guidepost for the division — and the general public — to see when instances are spiking or diminishing.

As of Tuesday, the variety of energetic instances unfold out throughout the VA medical system was 1,538, down about half over the past month and much beneath the 2024 peak of 9,688 instances set on Jan. 9.

However even that quantity is a small fraction of VA’s one-day document for COVID-19 diagnoses: practically 78,000 instances in January 2022.

The division nonetheless recommends sufferers and their households get vaccinated when up to date variations are made accessible, put on masks in public areas throughout instances of upper an infection and keep away from crowds in the event that they imagine they could be contaminated.

“The method transferring ahead will not be a lot about treating illness, which we nonetheless proceed to do, but additionally to forestall getting in poor health within the first place and forestall infecting others,” he stated.