National numbers, September 24

The COVID-19 plateau that I’ve described over the last couple of weeks continues, with wastewater and test positivity data showing that viral spread has slowed in much of the U.S. However, this is likely just a lull before respiratory virus season starts in earnest.

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National numbers, September 17

For the second week in a row, available data suggest that the current COVID-19 surge may be turning around, or at least heading for a plateau. But there’s still a lot of coronavirus going around—and this will likely remain true through the winter respiratory virus season.

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National numbers, September 25

Nationally, official COVID-19 case counts continue to decline: reported cases are down about 11% last week compared to the prior week, while new COVID-19 patients in hospitals are down 10%. But signals from wastewater and variants suggest a fall surge may be starting soon.

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National numbers, September 11

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.

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National numbers, September 4

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.

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National numbers, September 26

Following the Labor Day reporting blips of the past two weeks, COVID-19 cases are now clearly trending down in the U.S. The daily new case average is close to what we saw in early August, at the start of the Delta surge.

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National numbers, September 19

Last week, national case numbers appeared to be in a decline, with a 13% decrease from the prior week. This week, cases bumped back up slightly—most likely due to delayed reporting driven by the Labor Day weekend, as I predicted in last week’s issue. Still, this week’s daily new case average is lower than it was a couple of weeks ago. And the number of COVID-19 patients newly admitted to hospitals, a crucial metric that’s less susceptible to holiday reporting interruptions, has continued to drop.

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National numbers, September 5

Nationally, the current COVID-19 surge appears to be in a plateau. The number of new cases rose by just 5% this week, after a 3% rise last week. Hospitalizations are in a similar position: the number of patients in the hospital with COVID-19 has held steady at about 90,000 for the past two weeks.

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