The U.S.’s Omicron BA.5 wave appears to be creeping past its plateau, according to several major indicators. Nationwide, 1% fewer new cases were reported this week compared to last week, the second week in a row of clear deceleration in this metric.
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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%.
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As I suspected last week, the small dip in official COVID-19 case numbers was a result of the July 4 holiday, not an actual decline in transmission. This week, cases are up again nationwide, with the highest number reported since early February.
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Our prolonged Omicron subvariant surge continues, now dominated clearly by BA.5. While reported COVID-19 cases dipped slightly last week at the national level, this is almost certainly a result of the July 4 holiday rather than an actual slowing in coronavirus transmission.
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Cases have been rising for a couple of weeks now, but we’re now seeing the sharpest increase since fall 2020. Between July 9 and July 16, we went from an average of 15,000 new cases a day to an average of 26,000 new cases a day.
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The Delta variant is now officially causing more than half of new cases in the U.S., per the CDC’s Nowcast estimates. This super-transmissible variant has contributed to rising cases in under-vaccinated parts of the country.
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This is the first week since April that we’ve seen new COVID-19 case numbers go up in the U.S. It’s nominally a small bump—about 7,300 more cases than last week—but represents a 9% increase, and may be the beginning of a summer surge. (Even if we see a dip in the numbers this week due to the July 4 holiday.)
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