Question: About a month has passed since we last looked at COVID case/hospitalization/death trends. What’s the update?

Answer: Yep, we last talked trends in our Q&A of 8/30 #USA. Below are charts for USA, NYS, and DC that I made using data from covidtracking.com. My friend, Dr. YJ Choi, just updated her Maryland charts and if you want a deep dive, please take a look!

Figure 1. USA: It’s a mixed bag, but still mostly bad. On the plus side, daily tests are on the rise and the daily number hospitalized is the lowest it’s been since late-June. On the negative side, cases are on the rise, the percentage of tests that is positive is still above 5%, and the 7-day rolling average of daily deaths has plateaued for the last two weeks.

Figure 2. NYS: Still looking good, especially with the increase in testing and very low test positivity rate. Go New York! One trend to be keep a watchful eye on — daily cases and hospitalizations have both slightly increased. We’d expect cases to increase because of increased testing, but that wouldn’t account for the slight increase in hospitalizations. A slight increase in hospitalizations would indicate a slight uptick in spread.

Figure 3. DC: Also looking good! Tests have increased while test positivity and daily cases have both decreased! Hospitalizations remain plateaued, but deaths are increasingly infrequent.

Figure 1. USA

Figure 2. NYS

Figure 3. DC