The U.S. stands at 50.9 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population per day, down a bit from yesterday. The seven-day increase was 5%, also down a bit from yesterday.
Data source for this and other graphs of new case counts: Calculated from The New York Times. (2021). Coronavirus (Covid-19) Data in the United States. Retrieved 9/3/2021, from https://github.com/nytimes/covid-19-data.” The NY Times U.S. tracking page may be found at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html.
I’ve added a linear trend line to the chart of showing the growth rate in new cases. This is so you can see where I’ve been coming from with the idea that we ought to see the peak of the Delta wave in early September. Up until about a week ago, we were smoothly on track for that. But that’s stalled this past week.
CDC is still showing that hospitalizations peaked for the U.S. as a whole. That said, if I look at individual states, cases and hospitalizations appear to be in synch.
Here’s the U.S.
Source: CDC Covid data tracker.
Here’s e.g., Texas, Florida, California. There, the fall in hospitalizations matches the fall in new cases.
I’m still looking for direct evidence that the last little blip I saw was related to re-opening of schools. It is, as I have noted before, tough to get any sort of U.S. breakout of new cases by age, in any sort of timely fashion.
I can get that information for Virginia, but many Virginia school districts start school after Labor Day.
The bottom line is that I’m still looking for any reasonable confirmation that the age mix of new cases showed some sudden shift toward school-age children.
As for the rate of testing, well, the CDC’s reported data have such long lags that it’s impossible to tell, yet, nationally, whether there was a clear increase in testing associated with school openings.
