What's

COVID surge and how can you stay safe?

I wear a mask whenever I feel like there's just too many people around

and that's probably the best way that in getting vaccinated to kind of survive both the heat

and being indoors during the COVID surge.

It's Thursday, August 8th and you're listening to Science Friday.

I'm Cyfry producer D. Peter Schmidt. It seems like everyone's either coming

down with COVID this summer or maybe you know somebody who is. And that's because for the

fourth summer in a row COVID cases are once again experiencing a summer surge.

The CDC classifies this viral activity as a high level.

So it's behind this surge and why does it keep happening each summer?

Here's Gessos John Dankowski with more.

Joining me now is Jessica Malotti Rivera, infectious disease epidemiologist, and science communicator at the de Beaumont Foundation based in San Francisco.

Jessica, welcome back to Science Friday.

Thanks for having me, John.

Okay, so it does kind of seem like everyone I know is out sick this summer.

What exactly is behind this big summer surge?

Yeah, it's as you said, I mean this is our fourth summer with COVID-19 and it is our fourth summer with a COVID-19 surge.

And it's pretty predictable because of a few things, three mainly.

One of them is behavioral.

So in the summer months, it's a lot hotter and people

are trying to escape the heat and going inside where they have access to air conditioning

...