On September 2, 2022, the federal government stopped taking orders for free at-home COVID-19 tests. The day this program ended, I sent a public records request to the federal government asking for data on how many tests were distributed. I just received some data back from my request; here’s what the numbers show.
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Last Sunday, 60 Minutes aired an interview with President Joe Biden in which he declared the pandemic is “over,” noting that everyone at the Detroit Auto Show “seems to be in pretty good shape.” But there are millions of Americans Biden wasn’t seeing: people who aren’t in good shape.
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COVID-19 is still a public health emergency. At the moment, this is true according to both the general definition of this term and official declarations by the federal government. But the latter could change in the coming months, likely leading to more fragmentation in U.S. COVID-19 data.
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Unlike previous vaccination campaigns, the new Omicron boosters are available to all adults across the country who have been previously inoculated. But all previously-vaccinated Americans are not facing similar levels of COVID-19 risk.
Read MoreLast week, the team behind Bloomberg’s COVID-19 vaccine tracker announced that the dashboard will stop updating on October 5. Thank you to this team for your work tracking the vaccine rollout!
Read MoreSources and updates for the week of October 2 include recognition for a long-running dashboard, wastewater surveillance for monkeypox, chronic diseases and risk factors, and more.
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New, Omicron-specific booster shots are publicly available for all American adults who’ve been previously vaccinated. But awareness of the shots and uptake so far are both incredibly low.
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Official COVID-19 numbers continue to drop nationwide, with case counts down 13% and new hospital admissions down 6% this week compared to the prior week. Still, signals from wastewater suggest this is no time to let our guard down, especially if you live in the Northeast.
Read MoreIf you went to check Biobot’s COVID-19 wastewater dashboard this week, you may have noticed that the company hasn’t updated its data since September 14. The company’s lab is closed for a retreat.
Read MoreSources and updates for the week of September 25 include new booster shot data, CDC funding for COVID-19 testing and genomic surveillance, Long COVID studies, and more.
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Omicron BF.7, an offshoot of BA.5, is the latest subvariant to raise red flags among experts tracking COVID-19 in the U.S. This week, BF.7 passed BA.2.75, another worrying lineage, in the CDC’s prevalence estimates: the CDC found that it caused about 2.3% of new cases nationwide in the week ending September 24.
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Nationally, official COVID-19 case counts continue to decline: reported cases are down about 11% last week compared to the prior week, while new COVID-19 patients in hospitals are down 10%. But signals from wastewater and variants suggest a fall surge may be starting soon.
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