AUSTIN (KXAN) — As temperatures increase during the summer months, so too do the rates of positive COVID-19 cases, Texas health experts have reported. Data from urgent care clinics across the country shows that Texas has experienced one of the highest summer surges in the country.
Experity, a healthcare software company, has tracked data from urgent care clinics, revealing a surge in COVID cases over the summer months.
According to Experity, urgent care visit volumes have continued at a predictable pace over the summer; however, several states have seen a rise in COVID diagnoses.
Over the summer, urgent care clinics saw a significant increase in COVID-positive patients based on a seven-day average. From June 1 through August 11, the nationwide positivity rate grew from 5% to 17.9%, according to Experity.
The three states with the highest rates of COVID positivity (as of August 11) are:
- Texas – 31.8%
- Florida – 28.0%
- Arizona – 26.0%
Experity’s Chief Medical Officer, Andrea Giamalva, MD, said the company is involved in more than 40 million visits a year that occur in the urgent care space, so they’re able to provide real-time data on things like positivity rates of COVID, RSV, strep and the flu.
The information coming directly from community urgent care clinics can help paint a clearer picture of what’s going on in an area health-wise, compared to data that comes from other sources, Giamalva said.
“What’s interesting for us is we differ from the CDC data for a couple different reasons,” Giamalva said. “The CDC data uses information on things like wastewater, where in some states, maybe only get, like, four submissions over the course of the entire state for their wastewater data.”
It’s faster, too, she explained.
“The CDC also has a delay of about two weeks, and as we know at this juncture — you know five years past a pandemic — that can be a significant difference, a two-week time frame compared to maybe what’s happening right now. We tend to show a trailing seven-day, so, basically, the average over the past seven days, and show that positivity trend.”
“The key thing, I think, is the timeliness of the information,” Giamalva said.
The data is available for Experity’s client clinics as well as the public. No patient’s personal information is reported with the medical data, Giamalva said.
Because of the data gathered, Giamalva has also noticed trends of when COVID peaks throughout the year.
“What we’re noticing as well over time as the pandemic kind of is in the the rear view mirror, so to speak — we’re recognizing that COVID is having this kind of double peak, where, yes, there are some peaks that happen in the winter months, but we’re also seeing significant peaks in the summer,” she explained.
“Texas specifically is the highest rate of COVID positivity according to our trend lines.” Giamalva said that could be due to Texas being an area that tends to be traveled to more frequently in the summer, on top of the fact that COVID typically sees surges in the summer months.
Experity’s data can be viewed online at ExperityHealth.com/urgent-care-visit-data/.