Covid cases in the US show signs of slowing down, even as deaths increase

Covid cases continue to increase in the United States, but the rate of infections shows signs of slowing down, especially in some of the states most affected by the delta variant.

Although cases have risen to their highest level since January, averaging 152,000 daily over the past week, the rate of increase in new infections has slowed substantially over the past two weeks, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University. New cases rose 11 percent last week, nearly a third of the 30 percent jump from seven days just two weeks ago, according to the data.

A combination of the high level of recent cases along with the number of Americans vaccinated means the virus can now find fewer people to infect, according to Dr. Bruce Farber, head of infectious diseases at Northwell Health in Manhasset, New York. .

“Every outbreak has these peaks and as the percentage of the population gets infected and vaccinated, and it can be a combination of these things, you will run out of fuel,” he said. “And in this case, the fuel is from unvaccinated and uninfected people.”

The United States has seen a handful of peaks in cases throughout the pandemic. The average number of daily cases exceeded approximately 32,000 in April 2020 before retreating and then resurfaced to a new high of 67,000 daily in July 2020. Many expected the pandemic to continue last fall, already that the daily average of cases fell to about 34,000 just after Labor Day In 2020 before the autumn and winter holiday season caused an increase in Covid cases to an average of seven days of 251,000 cases in the day in January. There was a sharp decline after the holidays before the UK alpha variant began causing a further rise in cases in the US to an average of 71,000 cases a day this past April.

Even if the cases approach a new high point, it may be some time before this is seen in local hospitals. Hospitalizations and deaths tend to delay the counting of cases by a couple of weeks or more, as it takes time for people to become infected with the virus and then get sick enough to need urgent care.

It is possible that the hospitalization curve across the country is flexing. An average of more than 12,200 Americans were admitted to hospitals with Covid every day during the week ending Aug. 23, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is an increase of 6.6% over the previous week, a smaller jump than that seen in recent weeks.

The death toll, on the other hand, continues to rise at an accelerated rate. Hopkins data shows the country’s average daily death toll topped 1,100 on Wednesday, 39 percent more than a week ago, driven by the significant and rapidly rising deaths reported by Florida, Texas, Louisiana and Georgia.

Some of the states that experienced the first impacts of delta variant spread are seeing cases decrease or flatten.

Louisiana, which had been at the forefront of the country in number of daily population-adjusted cases for weeks until it was recently overtaken by Mississippi, now shows some signs of relief. The state records a seven-day average of about 4,700 cases a day, 10% less than a week ago and 20% from its maximum level of about 5,800 cases a day ten days ago.

Alyson Neel, a spokeswoman for the Louisiana Department of Health, said it is too early to know if the outbreak in Louisiana has reached its peak.

“We can’t ignore that there is daylight in the cases, we can’t ignore that there have been at least a few days of diminished complaints of Covid cases, and that’s really good,” Neel said.

“I don’t know if we would say we know whether or not we have reached the maximum intensity, but we are certainly grateful for the small drop in cases,” he added.

While the slowdown in the number of cases may indicate that the deltaic rise is finally approaching its peak, many states are still facing a flood of hospitalizations and deaths. The 139 deaths reported in Louisiana on Aug. 24 are the highest single-day total during the pandemic, according to Hopkins data.

Just under half of Louisiana’s intensive care beds were occupied by Covid patients as of Thursday, compared to 30 percent nationwide, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. The increase also weighs on the health systems of Texas and Florida, where more than 50% of ICU beds are treating coronavirus cases, according to HHS.

“I certainly hope people don’t take the declining number of cases as a sign that we’re really out of the woods,” said Dr. Barbara Taylor, dean and professor of infectious diseases at the University’s Center for Health Sciences. from Texas to San Antonio, he told CNBC. “There are so many other factors we need to consider about the amount of stress that this entails for all of our systems and all of our healthcare systems.”

Texas records an average of 16,970 cases daily, 10% more than last week. This is below the state’s highest record of more than 23,000 daily cases set in mid-January and showing some signs of relief, but the number of daily deaths in Texas has quadrupled this month to an average of 153 a day.

In Florida, which is responsible for about one in seven new cases in the United States, infection levels are more or less flat over the past week, although they are at pandemic highs. The state, which stopped reporting daily cases in May, said it had 150,740 infections on Friday, up from 151,764 last week, and hospitals are straining to the point that the mayor of Orlando called for it. to residents last week who cut back on water to preserve the resources needed to combat Covid’s recent wave of hospitalizations.

Florida’s death toll, meanwhile, has reached a new seven-day high of 1,486 deaths, its highest weekly pandemic total.

In Missouri, which began increasing cases in early July, daily cases have dropped 10% last week to an average of about 2,400 daily. But deaths are also up, up 36% from last week, to an average of 35 deaths a day.

Infectious disease experts say the return to face-to-face learning for college and school students will be another hurdle to curb the spread, with the possibility of outbreaks localized this fall. However, there is a playbook for fighting the virus at this time of the pandemic, Taylor said.

“I think the answers are the same answers they have been for a while: vaccinating more people, offering more access to vaccination for more people, and facilitating access to mobile clinics,” he said, adding that the ‘masking and social distancing from those from different households remain important tools.

“We know ways to reduce or mitigate risk both in schools and in work environments,” Taylor continued. “But I think in some places this is going to be very difficult and there is a lot of variation in internships in schools.”