![\"People](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/d41586-025-03412-x_51605240.jpg\"\/)
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Credit: Orlando Sierra\/AFP via Getty<\/p>\n
SARS-CoV-2 infections have been rising in the past month \u2014 global cases increased by more than 19,000 last month compared with the previous month, according to data posted on the World Health Organization (WHO) COVID-19 dashboard<\/a>.<\/p>\n But the real number of infections is much higher than that, researchers say, because countries are less focused on collecting data on the infection now than they were during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n \u201cSurveillance is happening but it\u2019s at a much lower level than it used to be. We don\u2019t have a complete picture of virus circulation of the variants that are out there,\u201d says Maria Van Kerkhove, interim director of the department of epidemic and pandemic management at the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland. \u201cI think there\u2019s a collective amnesia right now about COVID-19,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n Even if people do test positive after using a home antibody test, there is no way to report a positive result in the community, says Antonia Ho, a clinical epidemiologist at the University of Glasgow, UK.<\/p>\n Without high-quality surveillance data, Ho warns that health organizations are not well-prepared to recommend corresponding vaccine formulations and time their roll-out. \u201cSurveillance is critical to really understand what\u2019s circulating,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n How is COVID-19 being tracked?<\/p>\n Although surveillance data that are used to track the absolute number of SARS-CoV-2 infections are less robust than during the pandemic, researchers are tracking information about the number of people with severe COVID-19 who require hospitalization. \u201cHospital-based surveillance is what we\u2019re mostly doing. But we also have wastewater surveillance, which is quite a useful indicator of what\u2019s happening in the community,\u201d Ho says.<\/p>\n Genomic analysis of samples containing the SARS\u2011CoV\u20112 virus shows that the most common variants currently circulating globally are XFG, also known as Stratus or the ‘Frankenstein variant’, and NB.1.8.1, known as Nimbus. Stratus accounts for 76% of reported cases and is dominant in Europe and the Americas, whereas Nimbus is dominant in the Western Pacific region, accounting for 15% of cases, says Van Kerkhove.<\/p>\n Researchers overlooked airborne diseases for centuries \u2014 then COVID-19 changed everything<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Stratus and Nimbus have similar symptoms to previous variants including a fever, cough and runny nose, but the Nimbus variant has one distinct symptom: a \u2018razor blade\u2019 sore throat. These two variants are currently on the WHO\u2019s list of \u2018currently circulating COVID-19 variants under monitoring\u2019 as of 4 September.<\/p>\n Van Kerkhove says the latest information about SARS\u2011CoV\u20112 strains is far from the complete picture of viral circulation. Even hospitalization data aren\u2019t as complete as they were during the pandemic \u2014 fewer than 35<\/a> countries still report COVID-19 data<\/a>. \u201cThat\u2019s why we\u2019re trying to make sure that countries are still doing sequencing,\u201d says Van Kerkhove.<\/p>\n However, she adds that the surveillance data currently available are sufficient to \u201cprovide information to governments related to the effectiveness of vaccines\u201d.<\/p>\n Is COVID-19 seasonal?<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/d41586-025-03412-x_50648964.jpg\"\/)
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