Following a pattern from the last couple of months, national COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations continued to trend slightly downward this week—though local indicators suggest we may experience a fall surge soon.
It might appear that the U.S. reported a significant drop in COVID-19 cases last week, as the CDC’s numbers dropped to about 70,000 new cases a day last week from 87,000 new cases a day in the prior week. But in fact, the decline was likely exaggerated by Labor Day weekend, as testing labs and the public health workers who crunch data took time off.
This is my first COVID-19 Data Dispatch issue after my August hiatus! Here are a few updates on how that went and changes I’m thinking about for the publication going forward.
Over the past month, COVID-19 trends in the U.S. have been fairly consistent: disease spread has declined slowly around the country. Official case counts dropped from about 120,000 a day in the first week of August, to about 80,000 a day last week.
Reported COVID-19 cases and hospital admissions seem to suggest that maybe the BA.5 surge is slowing down, at the national level. (And it is, definitively, the BA.5 surge, with almost 80% of new cases caused by this subvariant in the week ending July 16). According to CDC data, new cases only increased by 1% this week, compared to the week prior; last week, they increased by 17%.
America’s Omicron subvariant surge continues to be in a plateau this week, with national COVID-19 case rates, hospitalization rates, and wastewater trends remaining fairly level or showing slight declines.
100 weeks ago, I wrote the first issue of this newsletter on Substack. Here’s a brief reflection on what I’ve learned about COVID-19 reporting since then.