Category: COVID through 2022

 

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 3/18/2022, 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

The U.S. now stands at 9.4 new COVID-19 cases per 100K population per day, down 17% in the past week.

By eye, it looks like we’ve reached the end of the down-slope of our Omicron wave.  Or very nearly.  Continue reading Post #1460: COVID-19 trend to 3/17/2022, hitting bottom?

As everyone sounds the all-clear here in the U.S., it may still be a good idea to keep an eye on what’s been happening in the U.K.  For all I can tell, they seem to be on track for yet-another-surge.

I’ve been noting the uptick in U.K cases for a while now.  As of three days ago, their (seven-day moving average) new case count returned to where it was in early February.

Now, three days later, it’s back to where it was in late January:

Source for both graphs is, I think, Johns Hopkins, via Google Search.

For those of you marking your scorecards, that’s a 26 percent increase in new cases in the U.K. in the past seven days.  That’s not quite the 50 percent per week rate that occurred just prior to the January 4 Omicron peak in the U.K.  But that’s still a pretty fast rate of growth.

I have two plausible things that I might attribute that to.   My brother says that mask use is virtually non-existent in London now, including on the London Tube.  But in addition, the U.K. long passed the point at which son-of-Omicron (BA.2), the more-contagious version of Omicron, became the dominant strain there.

Whatever the reason — less hygiene or a more contagious variant — here in the U.S., we’re more-or-less on that same path.  We’re just a bit behind. And masks are still required on public transport, owing (I think) to a Federal (not state) mandate for that.  (Presumably, the ability to mandate that is based on the Federal government’s role in paying for much of public transport in the U.S.)

As of today, the U.S. CDC says that BA.2 accounted for just under one-quarter of new U.S. cases (for the week ending 3/12/2022). 

Source:  CDC COVID data tracker.

Self-reported mask use is down about about 40% since the peak of the Omicron wave:

Source:  Carnegie-Mellon University COVIDcast.

And so, you do have to wonder what’s going to happen next.

It’s not difficult at all to find places where cases are rising again, after having peaked.  Or where they haven’t yet had the peak of their Omicron wave.

I hate to be that guy, but the the fat lady has not really sung yet.  Right now, “COVID-19 is behind us” remains an unproven statement.  It’s well worth keeping an eye on the U.K. to see how this latest surge develop.

 

The U.S. is now down to 10.5 new COVID-19 cases per 100K population per day, down 18% over the past seven days.  The rate of decline continues to slow, but we haven’t reached bottom yet.  Continue reading Post #1457: COVID-19 trend to 3/14/2022, still falling slowly. And a simpler explanation of why CDC-reported deaths seem high relative to new cases.

 

This post finishes out the data week.  The U.S. has not yet hit a bottom for new case counts.  We stand at 11 new COVID-19 cases per 100K population per day, down 23% in the past seven days.  Half the states are now in the single digits of daily new cases.

The rate of decline definitely appears to be slowing, but it’s hard to point to any obvious culprit.  If I had to guess, much of the slowdown is occurring because case counts are beginning to rise again in two large states:  New York and Texas.

Continue reading Post #1456: COVID-19 trend to 3/11/2022: 11 and falling more slowly.

The U.S. is down to 12 cases per 100K per day and still falling at the rate of about 30% per week.  Twenty states are now in the single digits.  But the curves for the states that led the downward leg of the Omicron wave appear to be flattening out, somewhere around that 10 cases per day mark.

Graphs follow, Continue reading Post #1455: COVID-19 trend to 3/9/2022: 12 and still falling

 

The U.S. now stands at just under 13 new cases per 100K population per day, down 31% in the past week.  So, no change in trend, really.

A few graphs and charts follow.

Continue reading Post #1453: COVID update to 3/8/2022

 

The U.S. is now below 14 new COVID-19 cases per 100K population per day, down 37% over the past seven days.  We now have 18 states with new-case rates in the single digits.  There’s some evidence of a modest slowdown in the rate of decline in the states with the earliest peaks and lowest current rates, but not much of one.

This continued rapid decline in new cases seems almost unique among first-world countries that had a significant Omicron wave.  That’s great for us, but I have to wonder what makes the U.S. so different from the rest of the world, for the end of the Omicron wave.

Continue reading Post #1452: COVID-19 trend: Still rolling downhill.

 

The U.S. is now under 15 new COVID-19 cases per 100K population per day, down 33% over the past seven days.  We now have 11 states with new-case rates in the single digits.  Even in those low-case-rate states, there’s still no indication that we’re getting close to some stable “endemic” case rate.

Continue reading Post #1451: Finishing out the COVID data week, still no end to the trend.