New COVID cases are plunging in the United States.
QUICK FACTS:
- The United States is reporting an average of 354,399 new COVID-19 infections a day, sharply down from the more than 700,000 in mid-January, according to a Reuters analysis of official data.
- Nearly the whole country is sharing in that improvement for the first time since the Omicron wave set in, Axios reports, average daily cases falling over the past two weeks in all but five states.
- The CDC had reported Omicron officially peaked in the U.S. at the end of last month, CBS News reported.
VACCINE NOT EFFECTIVE ENOUGH TO CURB DEATH RATES, THOUGH:
- The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that “COVID-19 vaccines are effective at preventing infection, serious illness, and death.”
- However, and even though Americans are over 76% vaccinated, over 64% “fully,” and rising, COVID deaths are still on the rise in the country.
- “The virus is killing roughly 2,600 Americans per day, on average,” Axios reports.
BACKGROUND:
- Maryland and Washington, D.C., have the lowest rates of COVID spread in the country, each with fewer than 45 cases per 100,000 people, New York and New Jersey not far behind, Axios notes.
- It will take several weeks for hospitalizations and deaths to follow declining coronavirus case count trends.
