US virus cases, hospitalizations continue steady decline

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By LEAH WILLINGHAM and JONATHAN MATTISE

Average daily COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are continuing to fall in the U.S., an indicator that the omicron variant’s hold is weakening across the country.

Total confirmed cases reported Saturday barely exceeded 100,000, a sharp downturn from around 800,850 five weeks ago on Jan. 16, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

In New York, the number of cases went down by more than 50% over the last two weeks.

“I think what’s influencing the decline, of course, is that omicron is starting to run out of people to infect,” said Dr. Thomas Russo, professor and infectious disease chief at the University of Buffalo’s Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.



Customers wearing face masks to protect against the spread of the coronavirus shop at the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia, Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2022. Philadelphia city officials lifted the city's vaccine mandate for indoor dining and other establishments that serve food and drinks, but an indoor mask mandate remains in place. Philadelphia Public Health officials announced that the vaccine mandate was lifted immediately Wednesday. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)


Read more: https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-health-new-york-infectious-diseases-buffalo-1a11bbba3693c38a3ac6d7069496244f

[SheltieLover]

1. BA.2 ramping up

Just in time for spring break.

[SergeStorms]

2. For now.

Everyone thinks it's over, and everything is back to normal now. I watched about 5 minutes of the Daytona 500 today. 150,000 people elbow to elbow and not one of them wearing a mask. Florida. That's where it will start, again.

By the beginning of June this country will be in the grasp of another COVID spike. It will be even harder to get anyone to cooperate with safety protocols then.

This country is doomed because of the stupid, selfish assholes which live in it, and some of the dangerous, stupid, assholes who govern in the red states.

Why even bother to try anymore?

[Pinback]

6. Interesting...

“Some of the dangerous, stupid, assholes who govern in the blue states.”

Enjoying DU, are you?

[sakabatou]

4. It's almost as if masking, distance and the vaccine worked!

[IronLionZion]

5. That's great but we thought the same last year

until the summer surge of unvaccinated folks sharing COVID with each other to own the libs. We'll see. So far it's down in cities that usually get these waves first and implement strict controls to bring it down.

[progree]

8. Wondering what the hell is going on with Maine?

Last edited Mon Feb 21, 2022, 07:26 AM - Edit history (1)

U.S. - https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html

Maine has the highest per capita new cases of any state in the U.S. -- 127 per 100k

It's also the only state that has increasing new cases, and it is quite an increase in the last 14 days: +76% (Actually the 7 day moving average ending 2/19 compared to 7 day moving average ending 2/5).

Maine - https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/maine-covid-cases.html

A super-massive spike in the 7 day moving average -- it looks like some kind of reporting anomaly.

Clicking the "Last 90 days" button -- it indicates that the 3 days Feb 15-17 all have reporting anomalies. But the 18th and 19th are not flagged that way, even though they are also quadruple the number of new cases that were in the corresponding days a week ago.