The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene reports hospitalizations in New York surged in July, but the number is still a small fraction of what it was in January of 2022 during the last big surge. There have been virtually no deaths for several months.
You may have heard about a new variant of COVID-19, known as Eris. Mutations or changes in the virus are normal and expected, and experts track them closely. In this case, there does not seem to be anything significantly different about this new subvariant. It causes the same symptoms, and people do not get sicker when infected by it.