COVID-19 Data Dispatch

Tag: National numbers

  • National numbers, February 13

    National numbers, February 13

    Current COVID-19 hospitalizations in the U.S. have fallen under 100,000 for the first time since the Omicron surge started. Chart by Conor Kelly, posted on Twitter on February 9.

    In the past week (February 5 through 11), the U.S. reported about 1.5 million new COVID-19 cases, according to the CDC. This amounts to:

    • An average of 215,000 new cases each day
    • 459 total new cases for every 100,000 Americans
    • One in 218 Americans testing positive for COVID-19
    • 43% fewer new cases than last week (January 29-February 4)

    Last week, America also saw:

    • 85,000 new COVID-19 patients admitted to hospitals (26 for every 100,000 people)
    • 16,000 new COVID-19 deaths (4.9 for every 100,000 people)
    • 100% of new cases are Omicron-caused (as of February 5)
    • An average of 300,000 vaccinations per day (per Bloomberg)

    COVID-19 cases continue to decline across the U.S. as the country comes out of its Omicron surge. Nationwide, the U.S. reported an average of 215,000 new cases a day last week—a drop of about 75% from the peak of the Omicron surge, when nearly 800,000 new cases were reported each day.

    Hospitalizations are also decreasing: this week, the number of confirmed and suspected COVID-19 patients in U.S. hospitals dropped under 100,000 for the first time since the surge started in December. Deaths are decreasing as well, but are still at high levels: over 2,000 Americans are dying of COVID-19 each day.

    All 50 states and the majority of counties continue to report case declines, according to the latest Community Profile Report. But case rates are still very high across the country, well above the CDC’s threshold for high transmission (more on this later in the issue).

    States with high case rates this week include Alaska, Kentucky, West Virginia, Montana, Mississippi, North Dakota, California, and Idaho; all reported over 700 new cases for every 100,000 residents in the week ending February 9.

    Omicron is still causing 100% of new cases in the country, according to CDC estimates. But the agency is now splitting its estimates into the original Omicron and its sister strain BA.2: BA.2 caused between 2% and 7% of new cases nationwide in the week ending February 5, the CDC says. In the coming weeks, we’ll see whether this strain—which is even more transmissible than original Omicron—has an impact on U.S. case numbers.

    New vaccination numbers have been fairly low for the past couple of weeks, with an average of under 300,000 shots given each day (including boosters). And the FDA is now delaying vaccine authorization for children under age 5: the agency has decided to wait for Pfizer to provide data on how well a three-dose series performs in this age group, after initially considering authorization based on data about two doses.

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  • National numbers, February 6

    National numbers, February 6

    COVID-19 cases are now on the decline almost everywhere in the U.S. (right), though they are still incredibly high throughout the country (left). Note that Tennessee appears (incorrectly) green on the left because of a data error. Chart from the February 3 Community Profile Report.

    In the past week (January 29 through February 4), the U.S. reported about 2.6 million new cases, according to the CDC. This amounts to:

    • An average of 378,000 new cases each day
    • 806 total new cases for every 100,000 Americans
    • One in 124 Americans testing positive for COVID-19
    • 38% fewer new cases than last week (January 22-28)

    Last week, America also saw:

    • 112,000 new COVID-19 patients admitted to hospitals (34 for every 100,000 people)
    • 17,000 new COVID-19 deaths (5.1 for every 100,000 people)
    • 100% of new cases are Omicron-caused (as of January 29)
    • An average of 300,000 vaccinations per day (per Bloomberg)

    Nationwide, new COVID-19 case numbers have decreased for the third week in a row. The country reported an average of 378,000 new cases each day last week—about half the daily case number reported at the peak of the Omicron surge three weeks ago.

    Hospitalizations are also decreasing, with the HHS reporting about 115,000 inpatient beds used for COVID-19 patients as of February 5—down from a peak of over 150,000. Still, hospitals across the country continue to be overwhelmed as they deal with staffing shortages and limited drugs that work against Omicron compared to past variants.

    National COVID-19 deaths passed 900,000 this week, according to the New York Times and other trackers. More than 2,000 Americans are dying of COVID-19 every day, and this trend is likely to continue as the Omicron surge wanes; as always, patterns in death data follow patterns in case data by several weeks.

    New case rates are dropping in all 50 states and almost all territories, according to the latest Community Profile Report. States with the highest case rates this week include Alaska, North Dakota, Washington, West Virginia, Wyoming, and Tennessee: all reported at or above 1,200 new cases for every 100,000 people in the week ending February 2.

    Remember, even though cases are going down, many parts of the country are still seeing far higher numbers than they did in previous surges. Even in New York City, now about a month past the peak of its Omicron surge, the city health department reported about 220 new cases for every 100,000 people last week—more than double the CDC threshold for high transmission. It’s important that we remain cautious until the numbers are truly low.

    As Omicron continues to spread—and as the U.S. reported record cases in children this past January—Pfizer has announced it plans to ask the FDA to authorize its vaccine for children under age 5. The problem is: Pfizer’s clinical trial data have, so far, demonstrated that a two-dose vaccine series with a very small dosage is effective in the youngest kids (6 months to 2 years), but not in kids ages 2 to 5. COVID-19 experts are split on this rather complicated situation; you can find more details at Your Local Epidemiologist and at STAT News.

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  • National numbers, January 30

    National numbers, January 30

    COVID-19 hospitalizations are on the decline nationwide, though they have not yet dropped as steeply as cases. Chart via the CDC, retrieved January 29.

    In the past week (January 22 through 28), the U.S. reported about 4.2 million new cases, according to the CDC. This amounts to:

    • An average of 597,000 new cases each day
    • 1,273 total new cases for every 100,000 Americans
    • One in 79 Americans testing positive for COVID-19
    • 20% fewer new cases than last week (January 15-21)

    Last week, America also saw:

    • 135,000 new COVID-19 patients admitted to hospitals (41 for every 100,000 people)
    • 16,000 new COVID-19 deaths (4.9 for every 100,000 people)
    • 100% of new cases are Omicron-caused (as of January 22)
    • An average of 600,000 vaccinations per day (per Bloomberg)

    Last week, COVID-19 case numbers started to indicate that the U.S.’s Omicron surge was turning a corner; this week, cases are clearly on the decline. National new case reports have dropped by about 24% in the past two weeks, from 784,000 new cases a day in mid-January to 597,000 new cases a day last week.

    COVID-19 hospitalizations are also on the decline, though this metric is not dropping as steeply: the number of patients hospitalized with confirmed COVID-19 nationwide went from nearly 150,000 in mid-January to 138,000 this past week, according to the CDC.

    Deaths, meanwhile, are still increasing, as trends in deaths tend to lag behind trends in cases by several weeks. Over 2,000 Americans died of COVID-19 each day last week, and the country is on track to reach 900,000 total deaths in early February (in the official count, anyway—the true death toll is likely much higher).

    Cases have been dropping in Northeast hotspots like New York, New Jersey, D.C., Maryland, and Delaware for several weeks now. In New York City, for example, the number of new COVID-19 cases last week was one-ninth the cases reported during the city’s Omicron peak in early January—though the city and state overall are still at case levels far above the CDC threshold for high transmission.

    At the same time, cases continue to increase in some Western states, including Montana, Idaho, and Washington. The states with the highest COVID-19 case rates per capita right now are Alaska, Oklahoma, Kentucky, North Dakota, and California; all reported about 2,000 new cases per 100,000 residents in the last week, according to the latest Community Profile Report.

    The Omicron surge has inspired many Americans to get vaccinated. About 75% of the U.S. population has now received at least one vaccine dose, per the CDC, and more than 40% of those fully vaccinated have received a booster shot. But vaccines are still unavailable for the youngest Americans, contributing to a rise in pediatric cases: in the week ending January 20, a record 1.1 million COVID-19 cases were reported among children.

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  • National numbers, January 23

    National numbers, January 23

    Has Omicron peaked in the U.S.? Nationally, it seems possible, but the situation is more complicated at the state and local level. Chart via the CDC, retrieved on January 23.

    In the past week (January 15 through 21), the U.S. reported about 5.2 million new cases, according to the CDC. This amounts to:

    • An average of 745,000 new cases each day
    • 1,588 total new cases for every 100,000 Americans
    • One in 63 Americans testing positive for COVID-19
    • 5% fewer new cases than last week (January 8-14)

    Last week, America also saw:

    • 147,000 new COVID-19 patients admitted to hospitals (45 for every 100,000 people)
    • 12,200 new COVID-19 deaths (3.7 for every 100,000 people)
    • 100% of new cases are Omicron-caused (as of January 15)
    • An average of 300,000 vaccinations per day (per Bloomberg)

    Has Omicron peaked in the U.S.? Looking at the national data, you might think so: new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. have dropped 5% from 5.5 million last week to 5.2 million this past week. While those numbers are astronomically high compared to past pandemic waves, it’s encouraging to think that they might not get higher.

    Hospitalization data also seem to have reached a peak; while about 150,000 Americans are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, according to the HHS, this number is no longer rapidly increasing. Patient numbers are starting to decline in the states and cities that were first hit by Omicron.

    It’s too soon to say that we’re actually coming down on the other side of the Omicron curve, though. For one thing, as Dr. Katelyn Jetelina pointed out in a recent issue of Your Local Epidemiologist, holiday reporting and test capacity could be playing a role here.

    Last Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a federal holiday that many health agencies and test providers took off—though not a holiday on the reporting disruption level of Christmas or New Year’s. And tests are incredibly hard to find in some parts of the country, meaning that our current system simply isn’t catching a large number of COVID-19 cases. (Remember: most COVID-19 case counts do not include cases identified with at-home antigen tests.) In short, the current trend is encouraging, but we’ll have to see next week if it continues.

    While the national picture is hard to interpret, it’s clear that the Northeast states that dealt with Omicron first are now on the decline. In New York City, the case rate has been reduced by over a third, from 3,500 new cases per 100,000 in a week at the beginning of January to 1,000 new cases per 100,000 in the last week. Case rates are also going down in New Jersey, Maryland, D.C., Connecticut, and Massachusetts.

    At the same time, other parts of the country are still in the first half of their Omicron surges. Cases rose by over 40% from last week to this week in Wisconsin, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Idaho, Ohio, and New Mexico, according to the latest Community Profile Report. In fact, Wisconsin now has one of the highest per capita case rates in the country, at 2,800 new cases per 100,000 in the week ending January 19.

    A recent NBC News article explains that the urban regions first exposed to Omicron have higher vaccination rates and more available hospital beds, making them more prepared to weather the variant. But now, Omicron is beginning to reach rural parts of the country that are less vaccinated, less capable of taking on patients, and still reeling from Delta. For these communities, the next few weeks are bound to be rough.

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  • National numbers, January 16

    National numbers, January 16

    The entire country has extremely high COVID-19 transmission right now. Chart via the January 13 Community Profile Report.

    In the past week (January 8 through 14), the U.S. reported about 5.5 million new cases, according to the CDC. This amounts to:

    • An average of 783,000 new cases each day
    • 1,669 total new cases for every 100,000 Americans
    • One in 60 Americans testing positive for COVID-19
    • 33% more new cases than last week (January 1-7)

    Last week, America also saw:

    • 144,000 new COVID-19 patients admitted to hospitals (44 for every 100,000 people)
    • 12,100 new COVID-19 deaths (3.7 for every 100,000 people)
    • 98% of new cases are Omicron-caused (as of January 8)
    • An average of 1.3 million vaccinations per day (per Bloomberg)

    The U.S. once again broke COVID-19 records this week, reporting about 5.5 million new cases in total. Last winter, the highest number of cases reported in a single week was about 1.7 million; this past week, the country reported over one million cases just on Monday (though that number included backlogs from the prior weekend).

    Last week, I wrote that one in eighty Americans had tested positive for COVID-19. This past week, that number is one in sixty—again, not including people who tested positive on rapid, at-home tests.

    The U.S. also broke last winter’s hospitalization record this week: 157,000 patients are now hospitalized with COVID-19 across the country, according to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Last winter’s record was about 125,000. But this number doesn’t capture the dire situations in ICUs, staff shortages, and other issues that hospitals are facing right now. (More on that later in the issue.)

    Northeast states continue to report the highest case numbers: Rhode Island, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Delaware, and Florida all reported over 2,000 new cases for every 100,000 people in the week ending January 12, according to the latest Community Profile Report. Some of the earliest Omicron hotspots appear to have peaked; in New York City, for example, the weekly case rate is back under 2,000 new cases per 100,000 in the week ending January 11, down from a height of 3,500 new cases per 100,000 on January 3.

    But talking about specific state hotspots obscures from the fact that every single state is seeing insane COVID-19 numbers right now. Only four states reported fewer than 1,000 new cases per 100,000 last week—Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and Maine—but their cases are climbing fast. Remember, the CDC threshold for high transmission is 100 new cases per 100,000.

    Speaking of hotspots: I have a new story in FiveThirtyEight this week, explaining that the most important Omicron hotspots actually can’t be seen on case maps. Right now, we need to identify outbreaks among the people most vulnerable to severe disease and those most capable of shutting down society; but the deluge of cases right now makes it hard to see and protect those people.

    Here’s the kicker of the piece:

    Still, the toolkit for addressing omicron hot spots is the same as it has been throughout the pandemic, said [Julia Raifman, a professor of health law, policy and management at the Boston University School of Public Health]. New federal requirements for vaccinations, masks, testing and ventilation would help protect the people most vulnerable to severe symptoms while also reducing case numbers in settings that can shut down society.

    “Federal guidance on mask mandates tomorrow would likely reduce deaths by tens of thousands,” Raifman said. “The perfect doesn’t need to be the enemy of the good, you don’t need every state to pass it. But you can put in place a mask policy during the surge, and it will reduce transmission and reduce the harms to health care workers and businesses.”

    In other words: When you can’t pinpoint specific hot spots, you need broad measures that can impact everyone. That strategy was made harder on Thursday, as an Occupational Safety and Health Administration rule that would have required around 80 million workers to get vaccinated or comply with regular testing was blocked by the Supreme Court. Without this rule, low-income workers will continue to face heightened risk of COVID-19 infection — and their cases will continue to ripple out.

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  • National numbers, January 9

    National numbers, January 9

    The national average case rate for the U.S. is twelve times the CDC’s benchmark for “high transmission” (100 new cases per 100,000). Chart via the January 6 Community Profile Report.

    In the past week (January 1 through 7), the U.S. reported about 4.1 million new cases, according to the CDC*. This amounts to:

    • An average of 586,000 new cases each day
    • 1,251 total new cases for every 100,000 Americans
    • One in 80 Americans testing positive for COVID-19
    • 86% more new cases than last week (December 25-31)

    Last week, America also saw:

    • 115,000 new COVID-19 patients admitted to hospitals (35 for every 100,000 people)
    • 8,700 new COVID-19 deaths (2.7 for every 100,000 people)
    • 95% of new cases are Omicron-caused (as of January 1)
    • An average of one million vaccinations per day (including booster shots; per Bloomberg)

    *Here at the COVID-19 Data Dispatch, we’re back to our regular schedule of national updates based on Friday data, as the CDC has resumed weekly reports following its holiday hiatus.

    Omicron continues to drive record cases across the U.S., as we move from tense holiday gatherings to extremely fractured schools and workplaces. This week, the CDC reported 4.1 million new cases—almost double last week’s number, and about 2.5 times the case peak reported during last winter’s surge.

    Put another way: 4.1 million cases amounts to about one in eighty Americans testing positive for COVID-19 in the past week. And that number doesn’t include the vast majority of rapid, at-home tests that continue to be in high demand across the country.

    At the same time, hospitalizations are increasing rapidly, with over 100,000 current COVID-19 patients now reported by the CDC. We appear to be on track to pass last year’s peak, 124,000 COVID-19 patients in beds nationwide.

    I’ve seen a lot of discussion in recent days about hospitalizations “with” COVID-19 versus hospitalizations “for” COVID-19. As Omicron is less severe and more transmissible than other variants, the argument goes, aren’t a lot of those 100,000 COVID-19 patients people who have mild or asymptomatic cases, but tested positive for COVID-19 upon going to the hospital for a different condition?

    While it’s true that some COVID-19 patients in hospitals are “incidental,” meaning their cases were caught during routine hospital screening, these cases can still have a major impact on the hospital system. Healthcare workers need to separate these patients from non-COVID patients, take extra care with their PPE, and utilize other resources. Plus, a lot of patients that, at first, appear to “incidentally” have COVID-19 may see the disease worsen their chronic conditions, such as diabetes or COPD.

    To better understand the strain on hospitals right now, I recommend reading Ed Yong’s latest feature in The Atlantic—which gets into the “with” versus “for” issue, hospital staffing challenges, and other problems.

    When it comes to hotspots: the Northeast continues to see the highest case rates. New Jersey and New York are leading the pack, both with over 2,400 new cases for every 100,000 residents reported in the last week according to the latest Community Profile Report. (Reminder: the CDC threshold for “high transmission” is 100 new cases per 100,000, so New York and New Jersey are at 24 times the rate of this benchmark.)

    Rhode Island, Puerto Rico, D.C., Delaware, Massachusetts, and Florida also have incredibly high case rates, over 1,800 per 100,000 in the last week. Meanwhile, cases are rising rapidly in a number of other Southern and Western states: Texas, the Carolinas, Utah, Arkansas, California, Oregon, and Mississippi have all reported more than 150% case increases in the past week.

    If you are able to work from home and avoid public spaces as much as possible, now is the time to do so. January is going to be rough.

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  • National numbers, January 2

    National numbers, January 2

    While COVID-19 case numbers in many parts of the country have shot past last winter’s records, hospitalizations and deaths have remained relatively low. Chart via the New York Times, shared on Twitter by Benjamin Ryan.

    In the past week (December 24 through 30), the U.S. reported about 2.2 million new cases, according to the CDC.* This amounts to:

    • An average of 316,000 new cases each day
    • 674 total new cases for every 100,000 Americans
    • 79% more new cases than last week (December 17-23)

    Last week, America also saw:

    • 71,000 new COVID-19 patients admitted to hospitals (22 for every 100,000 people)
    • 7,700 new COVID-19 deaths (2.4 for every 100,000 people)
    • 59% of new cases are Omicron-caused (as of December 25)
    • An average of 1.3 million vaccinations per day (including booster shots; per Bloomberg)

    *This week’s update, like last week’s, is based on Thursday data (as of December 30) because the CDC has once again taken Friday through Sunday off.

    It’s difficult to interpret COVID-19 data in the wake of any major holiday, as public health officials and testing sites alike take well-deserved time off. The weeks after Christmas are particularly tricky: the numbers are just starting to recover from one holiday when New Year’s hits, causing another round of delays. This year, the CDC took three-day weekends over both Christmas and New Year’s.

    All of that said, we have enough data to say that cases are rising incredibly fast across the U.S. The country reported over 300,000 new cases a day this week—the highest seven-day average of the entire pandemic so far. Over 500,000 new cases were reported on Friday alone.

    https://twitter.com/alexandraphelan/status/1476919027670962176

    New York City continues to be a major Omicron hotspot. Last week, I wrote that one in every 100 New Yorkers had tested positive within a seven-day period, according to NYC data; this week, that number is one in 50. NYC’s positivity rate is over 25%, indicating that one in every four PCR tests conducted in the city is returning a positive result—but also indicating that the city is not testing enough to actually identify all cases. City data don’t include rapid at-home tests, contributing to the data gap here.

    NYC’s case rate seems to be slowing down, suggesting that the city may soon follow South Africa in seeing an intense, yet short Omicron surge. But “growth is still growth,” as analyst Conor Kelly points out:

    Meanwhile, plenty of other places in the U.S. are facing rapid growth from Omicron. In Florida, cases increased by almost 1,000% in the last two weeks of December—bringing the state from the lowest per-capita case rate in the country to the fourth-highest. Several other Southern states have also seen cases more than double in the last week: Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, California, Mississippi, Washington, and Maryland, among others.

    There is some good news in this surge, though: while COVID-19 cases surge to record highs, hospitalizations remain much lower than they were at this point last year. The CDC currently reports about 67,000 COVID-19 patients in hospitals nationwide, compared to a peak of over 120,000 in January 2021. Omicron hotspots like NYC and DC are similarly reporting hospitalization numbers that, while rising sharply, are not following cases as closely as they did last year. 

    COVID-19 experts call this phenomenon “decoupling”: thanks to vaccinations, treatments, and (possibly) some inherent biological qualities of Omicron, hospitalization increases no longer directly follow case increases. Still, a smaller percentage of cases requiring hospitalization can still mean a lot of hospitalizations, when case numbers are as high as they are right now. And hospitals, already facing dire staffing shortages, were in crisis mode before Omicron hit.

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  • National numbers, December 26

    National numbers, December 26

    The seven-day average for new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. on December 23 has passed the peak of the Delta surge. Chart via the CDC.

    In the past week (December 17 through 23), the U.S. reported about 1.2 million new cases, according to the CDC.* This amounts to:

    • An average of 176,000 new cases each day
    • 376 total new cases for every 100,000 Americans
    • 42% more new cases than last week (December 10-16)

    Last week, America also saw:

    • 55,000 new COVID-19 patients admitted to hospitals (17 for every 100,000 people)
    • 8,500 new COVID-19 deaths (2.6 for every 100,000 people)
    • 73% of new cases are Omicron-caused (as of December 18)
    • An average of 1.4 million vaccinations per day (including booster shots; per Bloomberg)

    *This week’s update is based on data as of Thursday, December 23; I typically utilize the CDC’s Friday updates, but the agency is not updating any data from Friday through Sunday this week due to the Christmas holiday.

    Last week, the Omicron surge had clearly arrived; this week, it’s picking up steam. Nationwide, the U.S. reported well over one million new cases this week—more than a 40% increase from last week. 244,000 cases were reported on Thursday alone, and the daily new case average is now higher than at any point during the Delta surge.

    Hospitalization and death numbers have yet to increase so sharply: the number of new COVID-19 patients admitted to hospitals this week is up less than 1%, and the number of new COVID-19 deaths is up by about 4%.

    But when Omicron reaches those Americans who are more vulnerable to COVID-19, they’ll arrive at hospitals already overwhelmed from Delta, the flu, and nearly two years of pandemic burnout. At the same time, Omicron’s incredible capacity to spread will likely cause staffing shortages for many hospitals, as workers get breakthrough cases. On Thursday, the CDC announced that healthcare workers who get sick may shorten their quarantines if their facilities are facing shortages.

    New York City continues to be a major Omicron hotspot: according to city data, one in every 100 New Yorkers has tested positive for COVID-19 in the last week. In Manhattan, the number is one in 60. And these numbers don’t include people who tested positive on rapid at-home tests and weren’t able to confirm it with PCR. The city’s test positivity rate is over 10%, indicating that a lot of cases are going unreported in official data.

    Washington, D.C. has also emerged as a Omicron hotspot this week, with an average of over 1,000 new cases reported daily in the week ending December 22. That’s more than three times higher than the city’s case record at any other point during the pandemic. Meanwhile, several states have seen their case rates more than double in the past week, according to the latest Community Profile Report: Hawaii, Florida, Louisiana, Georgia, and Maryland.

    As Omicron sweeps across the country—aided by holiday travel and gatherings—we are about to face the reporting delays that come with every holiday. Public health workers from local agencies to the CDC are taking time off, while testing sites close for Christmas and millions of rapid tests go unreported.

    Erin Kissane, co-founder of the COVID Tracking Project, wrote about holiday data issues in The Atlantic this week. Her piece concludes:

    In this information vacuum, some of us will tend toward caution and others toward risk. By the time Americans find out the results of our collective actions, the country will have weeks of new cases—an unknown proportion of which will turn into hospitalizations and deaths—baked in. In the meantime, the CDC’s COVID Data Tracker Weekly Review has wished us all a safe and happy holiday and gone on break until January 7, 2022.

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  • National numbers, December 19

    National numbers, December 19

    COVID-19 cases have increased sharply in New York City in the past week, to over 500 new cases for every 100,000 people city-wide. Chart via NYC Health, retrieved December 19.

    In the past week (December 11 through 17), the U.S. reported about 860,000 new cases, according to the CDC. This amounts to:

    • An average of 122,000 new cases each day
    • 261 total new cases for every 100,000 Americans
    • 2% more new cases than last week (December 4-10)

    Last week, America also saw:

    • 55,000 new COVID-19 patients admitted to hospitals (17 for every 100,000 people)
    • 8,300 new COVID-19 deaths (2.5 for every 100,000 people)
    • 2.9% of new cases are Omicron-caused (as of December 11)
    • An average of 1.6 million vaccinations per day (including booster shots; per Bloomberg)

    The Omicron surge has arrived in the U.S. While national COVID-19 cases are not significantly up from last week to this week, last week’s bump in the numbers from delayed Thanksgiving reporting has been replaced with a true increase, thanks to the combined pressures of both Delta and Omicron.

    Hospitalizations are also increasing, with about 60,000 Americans hospitalized with COVID-19 nationwide as of December 15—a 9% increase from the previous week. The number of Americans dying from COVID-19 each day is increasing as well, now at about 1,200 deaths a day.

    Omicron’s impact feels particularly pronounced in New York City, where I live, as the city’s case rate more than doubled in the first two weeks of December. This past week, the city’s test positivity rate doubled in the span of three days. Yesterday, New York state reported a record number of new COVID-19 cases (about 22,000), with more than half of those cases reported in NYC.

    To be fair, the case rates reported in NYC this week are probably lower than the true case rates during spring 2020, as testing wasn’t widely available during the city’s first COVID-19 surge. But on a personal level, this city’s current Omicron surge is undeniable: testing lines stretch around the block, and everyone from my old college friends to my local City Council representative is reporting a breakthrough case. I personally have yet to catch “the Media Variant,” but I’m rapid testing frequently and avoiding indoor activities as I prepare to visit my parents for Christmas.

    Omicron was causing 13% of new COVID-19 cases in New York and New Jersey in the week ending December 11. By today, it’s likely causing the majority of new cases. But the NYC region isn’t the only part of the country seeing rapid case increases: Hawaii, Florida, Connecticut, Maine, and D.C. have all reported more than a 30% increase in cases from the previous week to this one, according to the latest Community Profile Report. Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine, and other Northern states have the highest cases per capita.

    Vaccines, particularly booster shots, can protect against this dangerous variant (more on that later in this issue). While 61% of Americans are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC, less than 30% have received booster doses. This includes about 53% of Americans over 65, even though seniors were one of the first groups become eligible for boosters—and are among those most in need of this additional protection.

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  • National numbers, December 12

    National numbers, December 12

    All major COVID-19 metrics shot up in the U.S. this week. Chart from the December 9 HHS Community Profile Report.

    In the past week (December 4 through 10), the U.S. reported about 830,000 new cases, according to the CDC. This amounts to:

    • An average of 119,000 new cases each day
    • 253 total new cases for every 100,000 Americans
    • 37% more new cases than last week (November 27-December 3)

    Last week, America also saw:

    • 52,000 new COVID-19 patients admitted to hospitals (16 for every 100,000 people)
    • 7,600 new COVID-19 deaths (2.3 for every 100,000 people)
    • 99.9% of new cases are Delta-caused (as of December 4)
    • An average of 2.3 million vaccinations per day (including booster shots; per Bloomberg)

    Remember how, last week, I said that the dip in the CDC’s case counts was a vestige of Thanksgiving data delays—and we’d see more cases in the next week? Well, we’re seeing those cases now. Cases have increased by 37% from last week to this week, and they’ve increased by 55% in the last month.

    Hospitalizations are also going up: the number of new COVID-19 patients admitted to hospitals each day has risen 16%, to over 7,000. About 56,000 people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19 in the U.S., as of Thursday. And, tragically, death counts are rising as well: once again, over 1,000 Americans are dying from COVID-19 every day.

    Current hotspots include states in the Northeast and Midwest. New Hampshire reported the most cases per capita last week, at 659 new cases for every 100,000 people, per the latest Community Profile Report. Michigan, Minnesota, Rhode Island, and New Mexico also all reported over 500 new cases for every 100,000 people.

    In many parts of the country, COVID-19 patients have once again pushed hospitals to their breaking points, as the pandemic intersects with staff shortages and burnout as well as flu and other conditions. “We’re at capacity on a daily basis,” the president of a hospital system in Detroit told a local reporter.

    Despite growing Omicron concerns (more on that later), the Delta variant is clearly driving this surge. According to the CDC’s estimates, the Delta variant has caused more than 99% of cases in the week ending December 4, while Omicron has yet to cause even 0.1%. If Omicron is able to outcompete Delta in the U.S., the situation could become even more dire.

    It’s now been two years since a COVID-19 patient first sought medical attention, at a hospital in Wuhan, China. Though most Americans didn’t become aware of the pandemic until March 2020, the coronavirus was already spreading in December 2019—meaning that now, in December 2021, we’re entering Year Three of this global crisis. I hope this can be the year that we get vaccines to every country in the world, and truly get the virus under control.

    more national numbers