The Pandemic Is in Tenuous Retreat

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The good news in COVID-19 data continued this week, as new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths all dropped. For the seven-day period running January 28 to February 3, weekly new cases were down more than 16 percent over the previous week, and dropped below 1 million for the first time since the week of November 5. This is still an astonishing number of new cases a week, but far better than the nearly 1.8 million cases reported the week of January 14. Tests also declined nationally, but by less than 3 percent, nowhere near enough to explain the steep drop in cases.

Hospitalizations have fallen rapidly for the past two weeks, but we have a long way to go: The United States now has about 91,000 people hospitalized with the coronavirus as of yesterday, down about 40,000 from the country’s peak in early January, but still three times as many as before the fall/winter case surge.

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