The U.S. remains at 33 new COVID-19 cases per 100K population, up just 15% in the past seven days. This flattening of the curve is due primarily to the Northeast and Midwest regions, which saw no net increase in new cases over the past week.
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 5/25/2022, 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
Does this most recent slowdown mean that the second U.S. Omicron wave has peaked? It’s too soon to say. The Northeast region led this wave on the way up, and it does look like there’s a broad slowdown in new case growth across that region. If so, and if this wave matches the patter set by prior waves, that would mean that the U.S. as a whole would peak a couple of weeks later.
Meanwhile, we remain below 300 COVID-19 deaths per day, and still have just over 3000 COVID-19 hospital admissions per day. As I’ve noted repeatedly, I think that’s because the vaccinated now account for a much higher share of new cases than they did in the past. Vaccination alone now provides little protection against COVID-19 infection, but still provides good protection against having a severe case of COVID. The result is that the severity of the average case is falling.
This should be the week where BA.2.12.1 (Omicron-II?) is declared the dominant strain of COVID-19 in the U.S. The spread of that variant is the probable reason for this most recent wave of COVID. Passing the point where it is the dominant strain in the U.S. is another indication that we’re nearing the end of this wave.
