(Reuters) – The United States lost more than 23,000 lives to COVID-19 last week, setting a record for the third week in a row, although the number of new infections and the number of patients in hospitals fell from seven days earlier. .
The country reported more than 1.5 million new cases of COVID-19 in the week ended Jan. 17, 12 percent less than the previous week, and only eight out of 50 states reported an increase in new infections. , according to a Reuters state analysis and county reports.
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The average number of patients with COVID-19 in hospitals fell 2% from a week earlier to about 128,000, the first drop since October, according to a Reuters analysis of data from the volunteer-led COVID monitoring project .
While some health officials have expressed concern about a more contagious variant of the virus spreading across the United States, California Secretary of Health and Human Services Dr. Mark Ghaly was comforted by the fact that California hospitals admitted 2,500 coronavirus patients every 24 hours, 3,500 a day.
Ghaly told reporters last week that it was “the biggest signal to me that things are starting to flatten out and potentially improve.”
Altogether, nearly 400,000 people have died from the new coronavirus, or one in 822 U.S. residents. The country set a one-day record with 4,336 deaths reported on Jan. 12, according to Reuters analysis of state and county reports.
Alabama had the highest per capita mortality rate last week, at 16 per 100,000, followed by Arizona at 15.5 per 100,000.
The United States set a record on January 15 with more than 2.2 million COVID-19 tests performed in a single day. Last week, 11% of tests tested positive for the virus, down from 13.3% the previous week, according to COVID Tracking Project data. The highest positive test rates were in Iowa, with 46%, Idaho with 40%, and Pennsylvania, with 35%.
Graphic by Chris Canipe, written by Lisa Shumaker, edited by Tiffany Wu