Here are the latest national Covid-19 trends, according to the CDC and major wastewater surveillance providers:
- New hospital admissions with Covid-19 have decreased 21%, from 1,900 admissions per day during the week ending March 9 to 1,500 admissions per day during the week ending March 16.
- Test positivity has decreased 15%, from 5.4% of Covid-19 tests returning positive results during the week ending March 9 to 4.6% of tests during the week ending March 16.
- Healthcare visits for influenza-like illness have decreased 9% between the week ending March 9 and the week ending March 16.
- SARS-CoV-2 concentration in wastewater has decreased 23% between the week ending March 9 and the week ending March 16, and the national wastewater viral activity level is low, per the CDC.
- SARS-CoV-2 concentration in wastewater has decreased 22% between March 16 and March 23, per Biobot Analytics.
- SARS-CoV-2 concentration in wastewater has decreased 26% between March 11 and March 18, per WastewaterSCAN.
Downward Covid-19 trends continue across the major national data sources, as the U.S. keeps inching toward a lower-risk spring. Flu and other respiratory viruses are trending down, too, though there are still a lot of pathogens going around.
Last week, I described some disagreement among the major wastewater data dashboards. I’m glad to now report that the three dashboards (the CDC’s, Biobot Analytics, and WastewaterSCAN) are more in alignment this week, all showing that SARS-CoV-2 spread is trending down nationally. However, Biobot reports that current viral levels in wastewater are close to or slightly higher than the levels from this time last year, while the CDC and WWSCAN report that current levels are lower than last year’s.
All three wastewater dashboards also agree that the Midwest is currently seeing more coronavirus spread than the other major regions (Northeast, South, West). Biobot’s data suggests this region may be experiencing another late-winter/early-spring bump. The company’s latest update suggests that SARS-CoV-2 levels are trending back down as of March 23, but those data are tentative.
Covid-19 hospitalization data also continue to suggest declining disease spread at the national level. About 1,500 people were hospitalized with Covid-19 each day during the week ending March 16, the lowest this metric has been since August 2023, per the CDC. Of course, the agency does not track Long Covid — now arguably the most common severe outcome of a SARS-CoV-2 infection — in realtime, making it tough to understand the true impacts of this surge.
Flu, RSV, and other respiratory viruses are also trending down, according to the CDC; though like Covid-19, the decline in disease spread is happening slowly. From the agency’s flu surveillance network: about 3.4% of doctor’s visits during the week ending March 16 were for a flu-like illness, still well above the baseline for flu season (2.9%). Meanwhile, norovirus, a common stomach bug, is spreading widely.
In a rare piece of good news for Covid-19 data availability, researchers at the City University of New York (CUNY) have announced that they are continuing and expanding a study tracking the true prevalence of this disease in the U.S. The researchers have regularly surveyed random samples of the U.S. population to determine who recently had Covid-19, a practice that is incredibly helpful for estimating how many people are actually getting sick in an era of less-precise wastewater data. The CUNY study will expand to include flu and RSV along with Covid-19 and continue through 2026, according to a press release.
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