The U.S. still stands at 12 new COVID-19 cases per 100K population per day, same as it was at the end of last week. At this point, we now have a little flat spot on the end of the graph of daily new cases. It’s too soon to say whether or not that means we’re about to enter our long-awaited winter wave of COVID-19.
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 10/14/2022, 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
On the one hand, this would be just about the right time for the start of a U.S. winter wave of COVID. We’re just over halfway between the starting points for the last two years’ winter waves.
On the other hand, the European winter wave doesn’t seem to be amounting to much. In those European countries where everyone seems to agree that a winter wave has started, it doesn’t appear to be accelerating, and new cases are nowhere near the level seen during the original Omicron wave. More of a wavelet than a wave, so far.
Source: Our World in Data.
Additionally, so far, there’s no hint of an uptick in Canada. Which, if you think a winter wave is driven by cold weather, then … you’d think they’d see theirs start before ours did.
Finally, any clear north-south differential in new case increases in the U.S. has evaporated at this point. Maybe there’s a faint difference, still, but it surely isn’t much.
In a nutshell, no evidence for a winter wave yet, in the U.S. But no evidence that COVID-19 new case rates are going to fade away, either.
