The recent rise in Covid-19 cases in the U.S. has been largely driven by a handful of states, many of them in the same places that emerged as hotspots a year ago. As of Monday, about 75% of the previous week’s new cases in the United States came from Michigan, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Covid-19 cases and the rate of new cases per 100,000 people are resurfacing in several states that, for long periods, had kept the pathogen relatively at bay. Outside the period from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Eve, Michigan, Pennsylvania and New Jersey have not seen such high levels during the pandemic. And outside of that same holiday period, New York hasn’t had so many new cases since spring and Florida hasn’t since summer.
Public health officials and epidemiologists say the growing number of cases in many parts of the country can be attributed to a constellation of factors, including the spread of more transmissible variants; an increase in infections among younger people, often unvaccinated; relaxed prevention efforts and loosening of restrictions on dining rooms and interior masking; as well as pandemic fatigue.
A family pattern
After a sharp drop in the deadly drop, recently reported Covid-19 cases have remained high across the United States, but some states have seen cases rise again. They seem to follow a family pattern. When cases reached their peak in mid-April 2020, New Jersey, Michigan, Pennsylvania and New York were leading this wave.
However, when the nation reached a new high in late July, these four states were at low points as the pandemic center moved south and west. They went up again in the winter, along with the rest of the US, and are now the engine of this year’s last climb.
Covid-19 cases per 100,000
Covid-19 cases per 100,000
Covid-19 cases per 100,000
Covid-19 cases per 100,000
Epidemiologists and public health authorities in Michigan have noted that school sports are the main source of transmission of Covid-19. In addition, nationally, large outbreaks have been linked to the recent Easter holidays and spring break.
Increase in variants
The UK variant is now the dominant variant in the United States. The Western Midwest, including Michigan and Minnesota, where cases have risen, has some of the highest known case counts of the UK variant. Stump cases are also high in Tennessee and Florida. The variant has been reported in all states.
Regional versions of the virus, first detected in New York and California, are also gaining ground. Like the UK variant, these may be more transmissible than previous versions of the virus, the researchers suspect.
The prevalence of more infectious variants initially detected in South Africa and Brazil remains low in the United States, but due to the lack of widespread genetic sequencing, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cannot provide accurate incidence rates for to all of them.
The Biden administration on Friday announced a $ 1 billion investment to expand genomic sequencing in CDC, states and jurisdictions, as part of the $ 1.9 trillion Covid-19 aid package signed last month. The money will support Covid-19 specimen collection, sequencing, and data exchange to help identify virus mutations.
Infected young people
Older patients have traditionally experienced more severe cases of Covid-19, with higher rates of deaths and hospitalizations. Higher vaccination rates among the elderly, who were given priority for vaccines, have begun to reshape this trend, which may be contributing to the increase in the proportion of serious cases among younger patients.
Recently, infections and hospitalizations of children under 55 have increased.
“Hospitals are seeing more and more younger adults (those between the ages of 30 and 40) admitted with serious illnesses,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, said recently in a briefing. “And so what we really want to do is expand the vaccination more and more so that we can be in a place where we have … more vaccines out there and there are fewer diseases circulating.”
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 25.4% of people in the U.S. have been completely vaccinated. About 50.4% of Americans over the age of 18 and 39.5% of the total population have received at least one dose of vaccine, according to CDC data.
Recently reported cases were down from the previous day, with 42,018 reported for Sunday after 52,373 were reported for Saturday, according to the latest data collected by Johns Hopkins University. The number of new cases registered each day tends to be lower at the beginning of the week, as fewer people are tested and many states do not report data on weekends.
People dine al fresco at a restaurant in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on April 4th.
Photo:
emily elconin / Reuters
—Alberto Cervantes collaborated in this article.
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