Here are the latest national COVID-19 trends, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and major wastewater surveillance providers:
- About 2.2 in every 100,000 people were hospitalized for COVID-19 during the week ending February 22.
- COVID-19 test positivity has decreased 7%, from 4.2% of COVID-19 tests returning positive results during the week ending February 22 to 3.9% of tests during the week ending March 1.
- SARS-CoV-2 concentration in wastewater has decreased 13% between the week ending February 22 and the week ending March 1, and the national wastewater viral activity level is “low,” per the CDC.
- SARS-CoV-2 concentration in wastewater has decreased 20% between February 19 and February 26, and the national wastewater trend is “medium,” per WastewaterSCAN.
- Healthcare visits for influenza-like illness have decreased 15% between the week ending February 22 and the week ending March 1.
COVID-19 levels continue to slowly decline in the U.S. as we move into a period of more moderate disease spread. While it’s always good news to see decreases, the lulls between surges still represent tens of thousands of new infections each day — each of which can lead to potential severe symptoms and Long COVID. Five years after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, this collective health crisis is far from “over.”
Wastewater data from the CDC and WastewaterSCAN show declines in SARS-CoV-2 levels nationally and across regions. Healthcare system data (current hospitalizations, emergency department visits, test positivity) similarly report consistent declines in the last couple of weeks, following a plateau earlier in February.
The South now appears to be more of a hotspot compared to other regions: SARS-CoV-2 levels in wastewater are highest in this region as of early March, according to the CDC, and both the CDC and WWSCAN report a plateau here. (Note: the CDC’s national and regional trends chart appears to show an increase in the Midwest in the most recent week of data, but upon closer examination, this is a quirk of data visualization: the region’s average in fact went down slightly.)
The CDC’s forecasting center also shows that COVID-19 cases may be increasing in parts of the South. This center, which models infection trends based on emergency department visits, estimates that COVID-19 cases are “likely growing” in three states as of March 4: South Carolina, Mississippi, and Alaska. Cases are “declining or likely declining” in 29 states and “not changing” in 13, per the center.
In other disease news: flu levels continue to decline, but this year’s record flu season is still a few weeks away from being over. According to the CDC, about 4.9% of doctors’ visits were for flu-like illness in the week ending March 1; this metric must go under 3% for the agency to consider flu season at its end. Measles outbreaks also continue: over 200 cases have now been reported across 12 states, the majority still in Texas.
The polling company Gallup released new survey results last week, marking five years since the WHO declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. While the survey (which included about 5,900 U.S. adults) largely confirmed that most Americans no longer see COVID-19 as a major concern, one result caught my attention: 40% of those surveyed said that their lives “will never get back to the ‘normal’ that existed before the coronavirus pandemic.” In addition, 11% reported they had experienced Long COVID.
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