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(CNN) – Official COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in the United States are piling up at record rates, and experts fear the same will soon happen with the daily death toll.
The graphs below show how the autumn coronavirus wave left the United States on unprecedented ground by some parameters. And, with the numbers rising, they indicate how the situation could worsen as the country awaits a vaccine and the distribution of new treatments.
The number of cases per day has reached new highs
The gray bars represent the file number of new cases reported every day. The dashed red line shows the seven-day moving average.
Last updated: Nov 13, 2020 at 1:36 pm ET.
Source: Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
Graphics: Curt Merrill, CNN.
Not long ago, in September, daily cases declined as the country recovered from the summer surge.
But the infections have grown back in a way that hasn’t been recorded until now.
Thursday saw the highest number of infections in one day in the United States (more than 153,000) and the highest seven-day average of new infections per day (more than 131,000), according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
This average is more than 3.5 times that of September 12, when it was at a post-summer low of 34,198.
And it’s well above the seven-day high of the summer, which was around 67,100 on July 22.
There has been good news recently. One of the possible vaccines has been reported to be over 90% effective. And the Secretary of Health and Human Services said vaccines could be widely available in the second quarter of 2021. Additionally, this week the Food and Drug Administration approved a new antibody treatment that could reduce the risk of patients with mild illness. to moderate are hospitalized.
However, with colder weather conducive to risky indoor gatherings and no vaccines available right now, experts warn that everyday infections have room to grow.
“I won’t be surprised if we see more than 200,000 new cases a day in the coming weeks,” Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told CNN on Monday.
We must underline that the table shows the reported cases. Some studies have estimated that infections were greatly underestimated, especially at the start of the pandemic, in part due to the limited availability of evidence.
Some health experts have said that hospitalizations may be a more realistic measure of the severity of the pandemic. However, the increase in cases is a warning sign, as a patient’s hospitalization can occur long after diagnosis.
The ‘most sensitive indicator’ of covid-19 in the US rises
The gray bars represent the file percentage of new tests positive for covid-19. The dashed green line shows the seven-day moving average. The initial increase in positive rates in March and April was due in part to a lack of available evidence in the first affected states, such as Washington, New York and California, where authorities prioritized testing in people with symptoms. Since there is no federal standard for reporting Covid-19 test data, national positivity rates may include inconsistencies.
Last updated: November 12, 2020.
Source: Covid monitoring project.
Graphic: Daniel Wolfe, CNN
The test positivity rate is the percentage of people who have been tested and found to be infected. And the U.S. rate has skyrocketed in recent weeks.
The country’s test positivity rate averaged 8.7% in the seven days leading up to Thursday, according to the Covid Tracking Project.
It’s above the seven-day high of summer, which was around 7.9% in mid-July.
This image shows what the file was seven-day positivity rate in each state see you on Wednesday. Because reporting methods and data quality vary, positivity rates may not be directly comparable between states.
Last updated: November 12, 2020.
Source: Johns Hopkins University analysis of data from the Covid Tracking project.
Graphics: Daniel Wolfe, CNN.
The World Health Organization advised governments in May not to reopen until test positive rates were 5% or less for at least 14 days.
And the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Robert Redfield, suggested that community positivity rates should be less than 5% to keep schools open comfortably.
The coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, Dr. Deborah Birx, said the test positive rate is the statistic she looks most closely at. He explained that it is “the most sensitive indicator” of how the coronavirus situation is developing at a particular time and place.
U.S. hospitals have more covid-19 patients than ever
Last updated: November 12, 2020.
Source: Covid monitoring project.
Graphics: Daniel Wolfe, CNN.
According to reports, there are more COVID-19 patients in US hospitals now than at any time before the pandemic.
According to the Covid Tracking Project, approximately 65,300 coronavirus patients were in those facilities on Wednesday.
That’s more than double the number on September 20, when the country was at a low of 28,608 after the summer rally.
The figure is also above the summer peak of 59,718, recorded on July 23. And from the spring peak of 59,940 on April 15th.
“The new hospitalization record underscores that we have entered the worst period of the pandemic since the original outbreak in the Northeast,” two co-founders of the Covid Tracking Project wrote in an online post Wednesday.
“These hospitalizations data show that the current increase in COVID-19 cases is not simply the result of more screening of asymptomatic people. Rather, the cases we are seeing are an important indicator that many people are seriously ill, “the publication reads.
Some hospital systems have declared in recent days that they are about to overflow.
A total of 17 states reported COVID-19 hospitalizations on Tuesday: Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and Wyoming said the follow-up project.
The hospitalization data has likely become more accurate over time. Florida, for example, did not report its hospitalizations until July 10, the project notes.
The number of lives lost is also on the rise
The dashed orange line shows the seven-day moving average. The seven-day average is calculated by averaging the current day with data from the previous six days. Using averaging reduces the effects of dips and spikes in data caused by delays in reporting or changes in data collection.
Last updated: Nov 13, 2020 at 1:36 pm ET.
Source: Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
Graphics: Curt Merrill, CNN.
The recent daily COVID-19 death toll is not in record territory, but it is skyrocketing.
The average number of deaths per day over the course of a week rose over 1,000 this week for the first time since the summer.
The average was 1,034 on Wednesday, the highest since August 10, Johns Hopkins figures show. More than 1,380 deaths were reported on Wednesday alone.
The University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation predicts that the United States could have an average of more than 1,650 deaths per day by December 1 and more than 2,200 per day by January 1. This is if government leaders support the current social distancing mandates and even add a few.
This would be reminiscent of the numbers seen at the start of the pandemic, when more than 2,000 deaths were reported every day for some time in April. The highest daily average for a week was 2,241, recorded on April 24.
Infections appear to be killing fewer people on average than at the start of the pandemic. Experts say that, in part, this is due to changes in the way the disease is treated and the increase in the percentage of young people who are infected.
But as hospitalizations break records, daily mortality rates could rise further.
“The death-to-hospitalization ratio has dropped tremendously since the spring,” read Wednesday in the Covid Tracking Project publication. “But it’s also true that wherever we see hospitalizations increasing, deaths increase two or three weeks later.”
Brandon Miller of CNN contributed to this report.
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