Daily Covid Toll in U.S. Remains Enormous, but Cases Are Falling
By Lauren Leatherby and Lazaro Gamio
The past few weeks in the United States have been the deadliest of the coronavirus pandemic, and residents in a majority of counties remain at an extremely high risk of contracting the virus. At the same time, transmission seems to be slowing throughout the country, with the number of new average cases 40 percent lower on Jan. 29 than at the U.S. peak three weeks earlier.
Other indicators reinforce the current downward trend in cases. Hospitalizations are down significantly from record highs in early January. The number of tests per day has also decreased, which can obscure the virus’s true toll, but the positivity rate of those tests has also gone down, indicating the slowed spread is real. Still, the average reported daily death rate over the past seven days remains above 3,000, compared with less than 1,000 per day in September and October.
The country’s peaks were extremely high: Nearly 1 percent of the U.S. population tested positive for the virus in the two weeks leading up to Jan. 8 alone. That high starting point means even after the large drop, Covid-19 hospitalizations remain at levels seen in early December, when I.C.U.s were already nearing capacity in much of the country. They are currently almost twice as high as previous peaks in the spring and summer.
Experts say the decrease could mark a turning point in the outbreak after months of ever-higher caseloads. But new, more contagious variants threaten to upend progress and could even send case rates to a new high if they take hold, especially if the national vaccine rollout faces hurdles.
Variants discovered in the United Kingdom and South Africa have both been found in the United States. Vaccine manufacturers have said their drugs appear less effective against the South African variant. Other variants are cropping up, too: Researchers have discovered a California variant, and one from Brazil that shares similarities with the South African variant has appeared in the United States for the first time.
The variants may already have driven new outbreaks in the U.K., Brazil and South Africa, and federal officials have warned the faster-spreading U.K. variant could become dominant in the United States by March. But at least presently, their presence in the United States does not appear to have significantly undermined a general decreasing trend. Though transmission remains dangerously high in most of the country, every state is seeing a decrease in new cases. Hospitalizations are down across the country, too.