- COVID-19 Hospital Capacity Circuit Breaker Dashboard: This dashboard from emergency physician Dr. Jeremy Faust and colleagues shows which U.S. states and counties are operating at unsustainable levels, or are likely to get there in coming days. Faust further explains circuit breakers in this post: these are “short-term restrictions, regardless of vaccination status, designed to slow the spread of COVID-19” and help prevent hospitals from becoming overwhelmed. Dashboard data come from the CDC, HHS, and Johns Hopkins University.
- CDC Cruise Ship Color Status: Throughout the pandemic, cruise ships have been hotbeds for coronavirus spread. This is especially true right now, thanks to Omicron, and the CDC is investigating a number of outbreaks. The agency reports on all cruise ships that it’s monitoring for COVID-19, classifying them based on the number of cases reported among passengers and crew; as of January 7, the vast majority of ships have reported enough cases to meet the threshold for CDC investigation.
- Deaths and hospitalizations averted by vaccines: This December report from philanthropy foundation the Commonwealth Fund provides estimates on the severe COVID-19 cases prevented by the U.S. vaccination effort. Without vaccination, the report estimates, “there would have been approximately 1.1 million additional COVID-19 deaths and more than 10.3 million additional COVID-19 hospitalizations in the U.S. by November 2021.” (H/t Your Local Epidemiologist.)
