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by throwaway2037 683 days ago
To be clear, there is no scientific consensus on the term "surge". It is purely editorial, in my view. Iff you believe KFF.org, there trend lines show a sharp fall in the last six months here: https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/global-...
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Sidestepping nomenclature bikeshedding, healthcare organizations are seeing an increase in patient load which seems like a reasonably tactical datapoint that there's a meaningful increase over the last couple months.

Google is your friend; this [1] is but one France-specific example of coverage. You can find many similar articles in jurisdictions across Western Europe raising concern specifically in the last month or two.

Edit:

Many jurisdictions stopped collecting and/or sharing robust datasets in 2023 (KFF even calls attention to this). This often means digging through opaque reports to get useful data.

Here's an example [2] from the UK government, in PDF format, but bottom of Page 10 looks pretty "surge-y" to me over the last couple months and not yet at peak.

Edit:

Another example of good data horrible to access. Scotland wastewater monitoring [3] I can't provide a direct link; have to click on "Respiratory pathogens" and the first chart is wastewater monitoring; July 2024 shows the highest "surge" in levels since 2022.

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[1] https://www.connexionfrance.com/news/covid-19-advice-for-tes...

[2] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66337699cf3b5...

[3] https://scotland.shinyapps.io/phs-respiratory-covid-19/