By Mark Van Sumeren
March 14, 2022 – The clearest signal of continued progress against Covid in the United States came from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday. The CDC announced that 98% of the population resides in a Low or Medium Community Level. When the CDC introduced this revised model two weeks ago, only 70% met this standard. Just a week ago, 90% of the population enjoyed this designation.
The CDC considers two facets of the Covid experience in assigning these designations: infection rates and hospitalizations. Covid cases declined by nearly one-fourth last week, dropping cases to a tenth of the level recorded only eight weeks ago. The country has not seen cases this low in eight months – that is, before the Delta and later Omicron surges.
Admissions and census of Covid patients eased recently too. Both measures declined by more than one-fourth last week and plunged to only one-eighth of their early-January levels.
Deaths with Covid, while not considered in setting the CDC’s Community Levels, continued to decline. Deaths declined 60% in the past eight weeks. One-quarter fewer Americans passed away with Covid last week than a week earlier.
Nevertheless, eternal progress is not assured, nor are we guaranteed that the Covid pandemic is over.
First, consider the “normal” timeline of each Covid infection wave. Generally, the surge phase of each wave lasted one-to-two months. An ebbing stage followed each surge, with a comparable duration. In the United States, the Omicron surge lasted about one month. The ebbing phase passed the two-month mark over the weekend. Are we “due” for the end of this wave and perhaps, the start of the next one?
Consider: Cases continued to decline last week. However, the rate of decline slowed each of the previous four weeks. Now, an ensemble forecast anticipates that cases will stop falling and will turn higher within three weeks.
A few states withstood case increases last week. Texas reported a 15% increase, while Connecticut registered twice as many cases as the week earlier. Alaska, Colorado, and Delaware each saw cases jump by one-fourth week-over-week.
Europe’s experience should cause us further concern: Despite high vaccination rates and prior infection immunity, the entire continent sits embroiled in a sizable Covid wave. Austria, Denmark, and Germany suffered more than 2,000 daily cases per million population last week. France, Greece, Italy, and the United Kingdom endured more than 750 per million. Of these countries, all except Denmark sustained double digits cases increases week-over-week.
Encouragingly, deaths with Covid remain relatively low in these countries, compared to pre-Omicron times.
Tragically, the same isn’t true for Hong Kong. With vaccination rates slightly better than the United States but low prior infection rates, Hong Kong grapples with a Covid outbreak ravaging the country. Hong Kong trails only South Korea in the number of cases per capita last week – a rate more than forty times greater than in the United States. Worse, Hong Kong residents died at a per capita rate five times higher than any other country last week (Denmark was second highest.)