In the last week, new cases of COVID-19 have decreased significantly in every region in the United States. As of January 21st the weekly average of daily new cases declined by 20% in the Northeast and the South from peaks on January 11th. In the West, the weekly average of daily new cases has dropped 28% after reaching a new peak January 13th. The Midwest, where cases peaked in mid-November, the weekly average of daily new cases has plummeted 33% since its post-Christmas surge peaked on January 11th. See the graph below for a summary.
The large drop is inevitable given the increases seen after Christmas. With no big holiday coming soon and with distribution of COVID-19 ramping up, we may have seen a peak for the pandemic (hopefully Super Bowl parties won’t reverse this trend). Hospitalizations due to COVID-19 are also down 10% nationwide since the January peak. The one-week average of deaths has plateaued recently at at high level of over 3,000 cases per day. If that continues over the next month, that could still mean another 90,000 deaths due to the virus.
However, the newer, more contagious variant of COVID-19 first discovered in the UK has made its way to America. According to a new report I saw this morning, this new mutation has been detected in people in over 20 states, including Tennessee! See the graph below.
In this same report, experts recommended wearing either N95 masks or two cloth masks. While I don’t like wearing a face covering, I believe the evidence supports it. All my masks are reusable cloth masks, and I hate the idea of wearing two since one is uncomfortable enough. As much trouble as we have had with getting people to wear one face covering properly (it needs to cover your nose) or even at all, we won’t be seeing many people wearing two face coverings. Hopefully the vaccine distribution will ramp up before cases explode again due to this new variant. Be careful out there – the pandemic is not over yet!