Question: We haven’t looked at trends for a while. I know things are bad. How bad are they?
Answer: It’s been nearly 2 months since we did a round up of trends. And you’re right. Things are bad and getting worse across the country. I’ll share charts for the US as a whole, New York, DC, and Maryland today. Tomorrow I’ll aim to show charts for states frequently requested– Texas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia. And if any of you readers want another state, just let me know. All data are from covidtracking.com, which also provides links to local health department data/information in case you want to get more granular.
Figure 1. USA: Cases continue their steep rise with 211K cases yesterday alone. More than 101K are currently hospitalized, and deaths have averaged >2.1K/day over the last week with 2,445 deaths yesterday alone and nearly 15,000 deaths just in the last week. Meanwhile, test positivity is exceptionally high at 10.4%, despite testing continuing to expand (>2.1M tests yesterday alone). Alas, there’s no sign that growth in new daily cases is slowing. The minor decline in new daily cases witnessed last week is likely due to Thanksgiving monitoring and reporting issues, not a true decline in cases. We can expect hospitalizations and deaths to rise as well. But we CAN stop the spread! Masking, distancing, staying home when possible, washing our hands, avoiding closed spaces, crowded places, and close-contact settings.
Figure 2: New York: New cases (10.7K yesterday) are back to the highs of April. Hospitalizations (4.3K currently hospitalized) and deaths (72 deaths yesterday) are also rising, though at a slightly less steep pace than during the initial wave of the spring, which is a small bit of good news. Test positivity (4.8%) was last that high in mid-May.
Figure 3: DC: Cases have exceeded their highs of the first wave (392 new cases yesterday) while hospitalizations (193 currently hospitalized) and deaths (2 deaths yesterday) are also increasing, though like we see in NYS, they are currently increasing at a slower pace than in the first wave. This observation– that hospitalizations and deaths are increasing more slowly in the second wave– is likely due to both a) increased testing finding more mild/moderate cases and b) improved treatment among those hospitalized. Let’s hope that we keep hospitalizations and deaths minimized! And let’s all work together to stop transmission!
Figure 4: Maryland: Cases (nearly 3.2K yesterday alone; ~18K cases in the last week alone) and hospitalizations (156 currently hospitalized) are at their highest levels since the pandemic began. Daily deaths are also quickly rising (30 deaths yesterday; 218 deaths in the last week) as is test positivity (6.5%).
