In the past week (January 17 through 23), the U.S. reported about 1.2 million new cases, according to the COVID Tracking Project. This amounts to:
- An average of 173,000 new cases each day
- 370 total new cases for every 100,000 Americans
- 1 in 270 Americans getting diagnosed with COVID-19 in the past week
Last week, America also saw:
- 113,600 people now hospitalized with COVID-19 (35 for every 100,000 people)
- 21,400 new COVID-19 deaths (6.5 for every 100,000 people)
Two major metrics, new cases and current hospitalizations, are down for the second week in a row. (See the numbers trending down on the COVID Tracking Project chart, above.) The number of new cases reported this week is the lowest it’s been since Thanksgiving. And, while well over 100,000 Americans are in the hospital with COVID-19, we are seeing about 17,000 fewer patients nationwide than we did two weeks ago.
But this doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods yet. 195 cases caused by the more contagious B.1.1.7 variant have been identified in the U.S. as of Friday—as the vast majority of cases here aren’t sequenced, the true number of variant cases in the nation is likely much higher. And the new cases reported today indicate new hospital patients in two weeks, new casualties two weeks after that
The U.S. passed 400,000 COVID-19 deaths this week, on the anniversary of the first case identified in this country. Within the next month, we could pass 500,000.