COVID-19 Data Dispatch

Category: Uncategorized

  • National numbers, April 17

    National numbers, April 17

    Cases are increasing, especially in the Northeast. Note all of the empty spaces (representing data gaps). Maps via the April 14 Community Profile Report.

    In the past week (April 9 through 15), the U.S. reported about 220,000 new COVID-19 cases, according to the CDC. This amounts to:

    • An average of 31,000 new cases each day
    • 67 total new cases for every 100,000 Americans
    • 19% more new cases than last week (April 2-8)

    In the past week, the U.S. also reported about 10,000 new COVID-19 patients admitted to hospitals. This amounts to:

    • An average of 1,400 new admissions each day
    • 3.1 total admissions for every 100,000 Americans
    • 1% more new admissions than last week

    Additionally, the U.S. reported:

    • 2,900 new COVID-19 deaths (0.9 for every 100,000 people)
    • 100% of new cases are Omicron-caused; 86% BA.2-caused (as of April 9)
    • An average of 100,000 vaccinations per day (per Bloomberg)

    New COVID-19 cases in the U.S. have gone up for the second week in a row, and the increase was sharper this week. While the daily average of new cases (about 31,000) remains low compared to the Omicron surge, this trend is still concerning—especially when factoring in all the at-home rapid tests that are going unreported right now.

    Wastewater trends suggest that cases will continue rising in the coming weeks. Biobot’s dashboard suggests a national increase (most pronounced in the Northeast region), while about 60% of sites in the CDC’s network have reported increasing coronavirus levels in the last two weeks.

    Newly hospitalized COVID-19 patients, an indicator that’s typically behind cases but more reliable, is also showing a small increase as of this week. This will be an important metric to watch in the next few weeks: will BA.2 strain hospitals the same way that Omicron BA.1 did in December and January?

    BA.2, it’s important to note, is now causing the vast majority of new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. The CDC’s latest estimates suggested that this sublineage made up 86% of cases in the week ending April 9. And some parts of the country may be seeing further mutation of BA.2—more on that later in the issue.

    The Northeast continues to be a leader in this surge, as shown by both the wastewater trends and case data. According to the April 14 Community Profile Report, states with the highest case rates in the last week include: Vermont, Washington D.C., Rhode Island, New York, Massachusetts, Alaska, New Jersey, Maine, Connecticut, and New Hampshire.

    All of these states are seeing high transmission, according to the CDC’s old guidance. But the new guidance places most counties in these states in low or medium “community levels;” largely because hospitalizations—which, again, are a lagging indicator—haven’t started rising yet.

    This week, Philadelphia became the first major U.S. city to once again require masks in public indoor spaces, in response to rising cases and hospitalizations. I hope to see other cities and localities follow Philadelphia’s lead, but I know current attitudes make this unlikely.

    more national numbers
  • National numbers, April 10

    National numbers, April 10

    Coronavirus levels in wastewater are now rising in all regions of the country, according to Biobot. Screenshot taken on April 9.

    In the past week (April 2 through 8), the U.S. reported about 190,000 new COVID-19 cases, according to the CDC. This amounts to:

    • An average of 27,000 new cases each day
    • 57 total new cases for every 100,000 Americans
    • 5% more new cases than last week (March 26-April 1)

    In the past week, the U.S. also reported about 10,000 new COVID-19 patients admitted to hospitals. This amounts to:

    • An average of 1,400 new admissions each day
    • 3.0 total admissions for every 100,000 Americans
    • 10% fewer new admissions than last week

    Additionally, the U.S. reported:

    • 3,500 new COVID-19 deaths (1.1 for every 100,000 people)
    • 100% of new cases are Omicron-caused; 72% BA.2-caused (as of April 2)
    • An average of 100,000 vaccinations per day (per Bloomberg)

    After several weeks in a plateau, new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. are once again going up at the national level. The CDC reported an average of 27,000 new cases a day last week—less than one-tenth of what we saw during the Omicron surge, but still a notable uptick from the week prior.

    National numbers of newly hospitalized patients and COVID-19 deaths are both still trending down; this is unsurprising, as trends in hospitalizations and deaths typically follow cases by several weeks.

    Wastewater, a leading indicator, is showing pronounced increases both nationally and in all four major regions of the country, according to Biobot’s tracker. Similarly, more than half of the wastewater monitoring sites in the CDC’s network have shown increases in coronavirus levels over the last two weeks.

    That wastewater signal likely means that cases will keep going up in the next couple of weeks. BA.2 is a clear culprit for this: the more-contagious Omicron sublineage is now causing about three in four new COVID-19 cases in the U.S., according to the CDC’s latest estimates. BA.2’s dominance led the FDA to pull its emergency use authorization for Sotrovimab, a monoclonal antibody drug that works against Omicron BA.1—but not against BA.2,

    As we’ve seen for the last couple of weeks, the Northeast continues to be a leader in case increases. Jurisdictions with the highest cases per capita in the week ending April 6 are Alaska, Vermont, Rhode Island, Washington, D.C., New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Maine. All reported more than 100 new cases for every 100,000 residents, per the latest Community Profile report.

    Under the CDC’s old community level guidance, all of these Northeast states (and Alaska) would be classified as seeing high transmission. But under the new, more lenient guidance, 99% of the country—including most counties in these states—are classified as “low” or “medium” community levels.

    These lenient levels don’t account for warnings in our wastewater, not to mention under-testing as PCR sites close and at-home tests go unreported. As Katherine Wu wrote in The Atlantic this week, the U.S. may be facing a new surge, but it’s harder to accurately track COVID-19 now than it has been since spring 2020. Don’t let the low numbers fool you into thinking all is well.

    more national numbers

  • Sources and updates, April 3

    • Feds unveil new COVID.gov website: This week, the federal government launched a new website, COVID.gov, intended to be a one-stop-shop for Americans to find COVID-19 guidance and connect to resources in their communities. It’s a fun kind of irony that this is launching over two years into the pandemic, at a time when the U.S. is about to lose funding for free vaccines, tests, and other health measures. One wonders how many people will actually use this website!
    • FDA and CDC authorize additional booster shots for seniors: This past Tuesday, the FDA authorized a fourth dose for Americans over age 50 who received their booster of Pfizer or Moderna’s vaccine at least four months ago. The CDC incorporated this additional dose into their recommendations later that day; fourth doses are also recommended for immunocompromised people, and additional mRNA vaccine people who originally received two doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Notably, the FDA and CDC decisions come before an FDA advisory committee meeting, scheduled for this coming Wednesday, about booster shots. Not a great look for either agency’s transparency.
    • New data on Johnson & Johnson vaccine effectiveness: When the CDC recommended that anyone who received two J&J doses should get a third dose of Pfizer or Moderna’s vaccine, the agency cited this study published last week in MMWR. CDC researchers and their collaborators found that, during the Omicron surge, vaccine effectiveness against a COVID-related hospitalization or emergency department visit was much higher for J&J recipients who got a booster dose of an mRNA vaccine (90% for hospitalization, 79% for ED visit) compared to those who received two J&J doses (67% and 54%).
    • Racial disparities in COVID-19 patients with cancer: Another new study, published this week in JAMA Network Open, found that Black COVID-19 patients with cancer are more likely to experience severe outcomes than white patients—even after the scientists adjusted for other demographic and clinical factors. Black cancer patients already have higher mortality rates than white patients, the scientists explain in their paper; COVID-19 worsened this existing inequality.
    • NYC mask compliance: I recently learned that the New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) regularly publishes data demonstrating how well passengers on MTA subways and buses are complying with the city’s mask requirement for public transportation. The data are compiled from surveys; MTA workers observe passengers at a selection of subway and bus stops, and count how many people are wearing masks (categorized by whether the masks are worn correctly or not). Compliance recently slipped to a new low, AMNY reports.
    • Database of WHO disease outbreak reports: A group of researchers led by Colin J. Carlson has compiled a database of over 2,700 outbreak reports from the World Health Organization, which include information on significant public health events (or “potential events of concern”) going back to December 1996. You can read a preprint with analysis of the database here. (H/t Data Is Plural.)

    All featured sources

  • Send me your COVID-19 questions!

    It’s been a while since I did a formal request for reader questions. (And, gotta be honest, I am a little low on content for this week after spending the past few days at SEJ.)

    So, here is a formal request: let me know what you’re wondering around COVID-19 in the U.S. We’re in a confusing period right now, as BA.2 prevalence increases and safety measures are dropped across the country. What do you want to know? I’m most qualified to answer data-specific questions, but I can do my best with other questions as well.

    To send in a question, simply email me at betsy@coviddatadispatch.com or comment on the post below. You can also fill out this Typeform survey that I originally sent out in January, if you missed it at that time or if your perspectives have changed.

  • National numbers, April 3

    National numbers, April 3

    BA.2 caused more than two-thirds of new COVID-19 cases in the Northeast in the week ending March 26, according to CDC estimates. It’s no coincidence that this region is also seeing cases start to tick up.

    In the past week (March 26 through April 1), the U.S. reported about 180,000 new COVID-19 cases, according to the CDC. This amounts to:

    • An average of 26,000 new cases each day
    • 55 total new cases for every 100,000 Americans
    • 3% fewer new cases than last week (March 19-25)

    In the past week, the U.S. also reported about 11,000 new COVID-19 patients admitted to hospitals. This amounts to:

    • An average of 1,600 new admissions each day
    • 3.3 total admissions for every 100,000 Americans
    • 16% fewer new admissions than last week

    Additionally, the U.S. reported:

    • 4,400 new COVID-19 deaths (1.3 for every 100,000 people)
    • 100% of new cases are Omicron-caused; 55% BA.2-caused (as of March 26)
    • An average of 90,000 vaccinations per day (per Bloomberg)

    Nationwide, COVID-19 cases in the U.S. have reached a plateau. New cases decreased only 3% from the previous week to this week, following an 8% decrease the week before that. New hospitalizations and deaths are also declining slightly, approaching the same plateau pattern.

    Wastewater is showing a similar pattern, too. The overall, national trend of coronavirus levels in wastewater has been in a plateau for a couple of weeks now, according to the Biobot dashboard. Regionally, the Northeast saw a slight uptick followed by an even slighter downturn, and the South may be seeing a slight uptick now.

    BA.2, the Omicron sublineage that is more transmissible than the version of this variant that first reached us in the U.S., is now causing over half of new COVID-19 cases nationwide, according to CDC estimates. Two weeks ago, I wrote that 50% prevalence was a threshold for cases starting to increase in Europe; if the U.S. follows Europe (as we usually do), that means we’ll start seeing case increases here in the next week.

    According to the CDC’s estimates, BA.2 is already causing almost 75% of new cases in the New England and New York/New Jersey regions. It’s unsurprising, then, that several Northeast states have reported case increases in the last week. According to the latest Community Profile Report, states that reported increases above 25% week-over-week include: Arizona, Alabama, Ohio, Delaware, North Carolina, Hawaii, Massachusetts, and New York.

    New York City—an early hotspot for BA.2, as it was for the original Omicron strain in December—reported more than 100 cases for every 100,000 residents last week, according to both city data and the CDC’s figures.

    Under the old CDC thresholds, this would have put the city in a “high transmission” zone, indicating that all residents should mask up in public, indoor spaces. However, the new CDC guidance places New York City in a “low” level, meaning masks are not recommended—a clear example of the lenience in this new guidance.

    It’s good news that we’re not seeing a sharp BA.2-driven increase here in the U.S. yet, either within coronavirus levels in wastewater or within the case data. A BA.2 surge here may likely be a small bump rather than a huge wave. Still, the new lenience in safety measures—combined with federal funding running out for free testing, vaccinations, and other COVID-related coverage—is making me pretty nervous.

    more national numbers

  • Sources and updates, March 27

    • New report on pandemic-related workplace violence for public health officials: A new study, published last week in the American Journal of Public Health, shares the results of a survey that included hundreds of public health officials across the U.S. During the study’s time frame (March 2020 to January 2021), the researchers identified about 1,500 instances of harassment against public health officials, and found that over 200 officials left their jobs. And public health has only become more polarized in the year since this survey period ended. See this article in STAT News for more context on the study.
    • Health insurance plans available through the federal insurance marketplace: This one isn’t directly COVID-related, but it seemed like an interesting data source to share: the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) publishes a series of data files on health insurance plans available through the federal Health Insurance Exchange. The files include health benefits, coverage limits, cost-sharing potential, provider networks, anonymized insurance claims, and much more. (H/t Data Is Plural.)
    • At-home COVID-19 test use exacerbates inequities: This week, the CDC published a new MMWR study discussing rapid at-home test use. The authors used an online survey to estimate at-home test use among about 400,000 U.S. adults between August 2021 and early March 2022. Its findings provide additional evidence for the popularity of these tests during the Omicron surge, as well as for the way that these tests exacerbate health inequities in the U.S.: “at-home test use was lower among persons who self-identified as Black, were aged ≥75 years, had lower incomes, and had a high school level education or less,” the authors reported.
    • Considering another round of mRNA booster shots: Will the U.S. authorize a fourth round of shots for Americans who received the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines? At the moment, signs point to yes: countries like Israel and the U.K., which U.S. regulators watch for their vaccine efficacy data, are providing fourth doses to seniors. And the Biden administration is planning fourth doses for U.S. adults over age 50, the New York Times reported on Friday. Data so far suggest that these additional doses may be useful for older adults, but provide less of an immunity boost in younger age groups; Dr. Katelyn Jetelina’s Your Local Epidemiologist post on the subject provides a helpful overview of the evidence.
    • New data on Moderna vaccine for young children: As we consider additional boosters for seniors, the youngest Americans may soon be eligible for vaccination! Finally! After a lot of back-and-forth on the potential of Pfizer’s vaccine for kids under age five, Moderna released data this week suggesting that the company has found a dosage of its vaccine that significantly reduces the risk of severe COVID-19 symptoms for children between six months and six years old. Effectiveness against any symptomatic coronavirus infection was only about 40% in this trial—but that result is in line with vaccine efficacy for adults during the Omicron wave, when Moderna’s trial was conducted.

    All featured sources
  • COVID-19 in schools data: still bad!

    COVID-19 in schools data: still bad!

    Screenshot of Burbio’s K-12 School Opening Tracker, taken on March 27.

    In addition to the FiveThirtyEight story, I also had an article come out this week in The Grade, Alexander Russo’s column at KappanOnline. This piece takes a deep dive into Burbio, the company that has become a leading source for data on how COVID-19 impacted K-12 schools across the U.S—in the absence of comprehensive data on this topic from the federal government.

    Burbio is pretty popular among education journalists, I learned in writing this story. Dennis Roche, one of the company’s founders, writes a weekly newsletter providing updates on COVID-19 in schools, and often makes himself available to answer reporters’ questions. Burbio has also become a major data source for the CDC, to the point that the agency provided Burbio with a $600,000 grant for its tracking efforts in the 2021-22 school year.

    However, in the story, I discuss several red flags that stood out to me as a science, health, and data journalist. These include:

    The company does not clearly disclose its dataset’s limitations, nor does it disclose its funding sources. Its data are not publicly available for researchers to vet. The popular data on school “disruptions” are easy to misinterpret when cited without context.

    Journalists citing Burbio should be clear about the data source’s limitations, I wrote. And they should also consider alternative sources; while Burbio filled a void by the federal government, it’s not the only source doing this work. The story highlights several potential options: MCH Strategic Data, the American Enterprise Institute’s Return to Learn tracker, a scientific researcher’s dataset, and an HHS dashboard that compiles data from multiple sources (including Burbio).

    Notably, Burbio did not even attempt to track COVID-19 cases in schools, opting instead to focus on learning modes and safety policies. A couple of research projects did track school cases in the 2020-21 school year, but this specific metric is now primarily tracked by state health departments with no comprehensive federal source. (The COVID School Tracker, one volunteer-run site that is still actively updating, compiles data from states.)

    To see what school COVID-19 case data each state is reporting, you can check out my annotations page here; I updated the annotations of both state and national sources yesterday.

    Some states are now reducing their reporting in this area, aligning with the overall recent trend of cutting back on COVID-19 data at the state level.  A couple of notable examples:

    • Indiana switched from reporting school-specific cases to reporting school-aged cases (i.e. all cases in children ages 5 to 18 or so). Reporting school-aged cases is often easier for a health department, since it doesn’t require contact tracing cases to classrooms.
    • Ohio stopped its reporting of COVID-19 cases in schools entirely. As of mid-March, schools in Ohio are no longer required to report most COVID-19 cases among students and staff to their local health departments, according to local news site Spectrum News 1 in Columbus. (The exception is cases identified by COVID-19 testing within schools.)
    • Vermont also stopped its reporting of COVID-19 cases in schools. A note on the state’s “PreK-12 Schools” page reads: “Due to changes in testing and contact tracing in schools, the COVID-19 Cases in Schools While Infectious report will no longer be updated after Jan. 10, 2022.

    More K-12 schools data

  • National numbers, March 27

    National numbers, March 27

    The Northeast has seen a small uptick in coronavirus levels in its wastewater in recent weeks, followed by a plateau. Chart via Biobot Analytics.

    In the past week (March 19 through 25), the U.S. reported about 190,000 new COVID-19 cases, according to the CDC. This amounts to:

    • An average of 27,000 new cases each day
    • 58 total new cases for every 100,000 Americans
    • 5% fewer new cases than last week (March 12-18)

    In the past week, the U.S. also reported about 13,000 new COVID-19 patients admitted to hospitals. This amounts to:

    • An average of 1,800 new admissions each day
    • 3.9 total admissions for every 100,000 Americans
    • 21% fewer new admissions than last week

    Additionally, the U.S. reported:

    • 5,200 new COVID-19 deaths (1.6 for every 100,000 people)
    • 100% of new cases are Omicron-caused; 35% BA.2-caused (as of March 19)
    • An average of 100,000 vaccinations per day (per Bloomberg)

    New COVID-19 case numbers for the U.S. overall are still decreasing, according to the CDC’s data. But the drop from the previous week’s cases to this week’s cases (about 5%) is lower than any week-over-week change since Omicron peaked in January, suggesting that we’re heading for a plateau—if not a new increase.

    Last week, I discussed a potential new surge in the U.S. driven by the Omicron sublineage BA.2, which is more transmissible than the version of Omicron we faced a couple of months ago. BA.2 caused about 35% of new COVID-19 cases nationwide in the week ending March 19, according to CDC estimates, up from 22% in the prior week.

    As BA.2 slowly outcompetes the other Omicron sublineages in the U.S., we also continue to see case upticks in some parts of the country. States that reported case increases in the last week include Arkansas, Kentucky, Maine, New York, Colorado, Massachusetts, and Vermont, according to the March 24 Community Profile Report. (Arkansas and Kentucky reported week-over-week increases above 25%, while the other states here reported increases above 10%.)

    Wastewater data align somewhat with these case increases. Biobot’s tracker shows a slight uptick (followed by a plateau) in coronavirus levels in the Northeast’s wastewater, at a regional level, along with plateaus in other parts of the country. And about 40% of sites in the CDC’s national wastewater network have reported increases over the last two weeks—though the CDC’s data are difficult to interpret, as this tracker doesn’t provide context on actual wastewater levels at each site.

    To be clear, it’s good news that we aren’t seeing major case increases yet, just some small upticks. At the same time, numbers of newly hospitalized COVID-19 patients and deaths are dropping to levels not seen since last summer; this week, about 750 people died of the disease each day, according to the CDC—the first time this number has been under 1,000 in several months.

    In a recent TIME article, several experts suggested that vaccines plus lingering immunity from the Omicron wave in December and January may protect the U.S. from a major surge with BA.2. Still, with safety measures dropping across the country, in the event that we do see a major new surge (from BA.2 or otherwise), we won’t be prepared to curb virus transmission in a meaningful way.

    more national numbers

  • Sources and updates, March 20

    Data sources and data-related updates for this week:

    • APM Research Lab relaunches Color of Coronavirus tracker: From April 2020 to March 2021, the American Public Media (APM) Research Lab compiled state-level data on COVID-19 deaths by race and ethnicity, in order to present a picture of which U.S. populations were most hard-hit by the pandemic. The project relaunched this week, now utilizing CDC mortality statistics instead of compiling data from states. One major finding from the updated data: “Indigenous Americans have the highest crude COVID-19 mortality rates nationwide—about 2.8 times as high as the rate for Asians, who have the lowest crude rates.”
    • CDC might take back hospital data reporting responsibilities from HHS: As longtime readers may remember, back in summer 2020, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) developed a new data system for hospitals to report COVID-19 patient numbers and other related metrics. At the time, the HHS was taking over responsibility for these data from the CDC; this inspired some political posturing and concerns about data quality, though the eventual HHS dataset turned out to be very comprehensive and useful. (This original data switch was the subject of my very first CDD issue, and I followed the HHS data system closely throughout 2020.) Now, Bloomberg reports, the CDC wants to take back hospital data reporting from the HHS. More political posturing and data quality concerns are, it seems, inevitable—this time tied to the CDC’s challenges in modernizing its data systems.
    • Hospitalizations among young children, by race/ethnicity during Omicron surge: Two MMWR studies that caught my attention this week: one examined hospitalization rates among young children, ages 0 to 4, between March 2020 and February 2022. This study found that COVID-19 hospitalization rates among children in this age range were five times higher at the peak of the Omicron surge compared to the Delta surge. The second report examined hospitalizations by race and ethnicity, finding that, during Omicron’s peak, hospitalization rates among Black adults were nearly four times higher than rates among white adults. Both reports clearly demonstrate who is still vulnerable to COVID-19 as the U.S. abandons safety measures.
    • Pfizer and Moderna both seeking EUAs for additional booster shots: POLITICO reported this week that first Pfizer, then Moderna have requested Emergency Use Authorization for fourth doses of their COVID-19 vaccines. Pfizer’s request is specifically for people age 65 and over, while Moderna’s is for all adults. Notably, Pfizer’s request is based on data from Israel suggesting that immunity from an initial booster wanes after several months—just as Pfizer’s initial case for boosters in the fall was also based on Israeli data.
    • Global COVID-related deaths may be three times higher than official records: Throughout the pandemic, researchers have used excess mortality (i.e. the deaths occurring in a given region and time period above what’s expected) to determine the true toll of COVID-19. A new study, published this week in The Lancet, took this approach for 191 countries and territories from January 2020 to December 2021. The researchers estimate that about 18 million people died worldwide due to the pandemic—including not just direct COVID-19 deaths but also others caused by COVID-related disruptions. That’s three times higher than the 6 million COVID-19 deaths that have been officially reported in this time period.

    All featured sources
  • National numbers, March 20

    National numbers, March 20

    COVID-19 case rates are still going down across the country, but it’s unclear how long this lull between surges will last. Chart via the March 17 Community Profile Report.

    In the past week (March 12 through 18), the U.S. reported about 210,000 new COVID-19 cases, according to the CDC. This amounts to:

    • An average of 30,000 new cases each day
    • 64 total new cases for every 100,000 Americans
    • 17% fewer new cases than last week (March 5-11)

    In the past week, the U.S. also reported about 16,000 new COVID-19 patients admitted to hospitals. This amounts to:

    • An average of 2,300 new admissions each day
    • 4.9 total admissions for every 100,000 Americans
    • 27% fewer new admissions than last week

    Additionally, the U.S. reported:

    • 7,400 new COVID-19 deaths (2.2 for every 100,000 people)
    • 100% of new cases are Omicron-caused; 23% BA.2-caused (as of March 12)
    • An average of 100,000 vaccinations per day (per Bloomberg)

    National COVID-19 case numbers are still falling, as we reach two months since the peak of the Omicron surge. The U.S. reported about 30,000 new cases each day last week, according to the CDC; that’s the lowest this number has been since last summer.

    Hospitalization and death numbers are also still falling. The CDC reports that only 2,300 new COVID-19 patients were admitted to U.S. hospitals each day last week, compared to almost ten times that number at Omicron’s peak. Hospital systems in all 50 states and D.C. are currently labeled as “having capacity” on the Circuit Breaker Dashboard.

    While this is all good news, it’s unclear how long this lull in cases will last. BA.2, the Omicron sister strain, is slowly outcompeting the original variant thanks to its even-more-transmissible capabilities: it’s gone from causing about 2% of new COVID-19 cases nationwide in the week ending February 12 to causing 23% of new cases in the week ending March 12, according to CDC estimates.

    This strain is wreaking havoc in Asia and Europe, and U.S. experts are concerned that we may see a new surge in the coming weeks. Wastewater data may also suggest an oncoming surge, as a growing number of sewershed collection sites are reporting increases in their coronavirus levels. (More on this later in the issue.)

    At the state level, a few places are beginning to see case increases: Washington, D.C., New York, Kentucky, Rhode Island, and Illinois all reported modest increases this week, according to the March 17 Community Profile Report. D.C. had the highest case increase, 20% more cases than the previous week. Some of these locations were also the first to be hit in the Omicron surge last December.

    U.S. leaders should be taking advantage of this lull between surges to improve our preparedness: distribute masks and rapid tests, expand surveillance systems, and—most importantly—encourage people to get vaccinated so that they are protected when case rates rise again. Yet instead, Republicans in Congress are refusing to provide more public health funding, and the rate of Americans getting their first vaccine doses is lower than it has been since December 2020.

    more national numbers