COVID-19 cases rise 9% compared to last month with new variant

PHOENIX (AZFamily) — Data from the Arizona Department of Health Services shows a 9% increase in COVID-19 cases this month compared to last month.

But doctors believe the case count could be a lot higher because not everyone is testing like they used to.

The data comes as a new COVID-19 variant, KP.3.1.1, emerges and spreads. Dr. Frank LoVecchio, an emergency room doctor, believes he’s seen patients sickened with it but said the variant has similar symptoms to the other variants, and they could be confused for allergies, the cold or flu.

“I wish I could tell you that this variant is much different than others, but what we are seeing is symptoms above your neck, a head cold, congestion, runny nose,” he said. “Very hard to differentiate that from allergies, chest and body ache, and the body ache does help me a little bit.”

Dr. LoVecchio said things have changed in the emergency room when it comes to how well we can treat the COVID-19 virus.

“We have really, really pushed the envelope much more so than I ever thought we would in the sense that we do send a lot of people home,” he said. “If you would have told me five years ago that I would have sent a 90-year-old woman home who has pneumonia, I wouldn’t have believed you.”

Doctors still recommend receiving the vaccine.

U.S. regulators approved updated COVID-19 vaccines on Thursday, designed to more closely target recent virus strains and hopefully whatever variants cause trouble this winter, too.

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