National COVID-19 trends, September 9

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 2.1 in every 100,000 people were hospitalized for COVID-19 during the week ending August 23.
• COVID-19 test positivity decreased slightly, from 11.6% of COVID-19 tests returning positive results during the week ending August 23 to 10.8% during the week ending August 30.

• SARS-CoV-2 concentration in wastewater has increased 6% between the week ending August 23 and the week ending August 30, and the national wastewater viral activity level is “moderate,” per the CDC.
• SARS-CoV-2 concentration in wastewater increased 21% between August 20 and August 27, and the national wastewater trend is “high,” per WastewaterSCAN.

COVID-19 is still spreading at high levels in the U.S., as the variant XFG collides with the start of a new school year. Some data sources suggest that this summer-into-early fall wave may have reached its peak in parts of the West and South. But indicators are mixed and disease levels are still far from any kind of baseline — while the CDC has once again adjusted its data presentation to make continued high disease spread appear less concerning.

Wastewater surveillance data from the CDC, WastewaterSCAN, and Biobot Analytics all report that SARS-CoV-2 levels have continued to increase through late August. WWSCAN reports a more pronounced increase than the other dashboards — 21% between August 20 and 27 — likely due to differences in the testing sites in its network and methods for analyzing and displaying viral levels.

Both the CDC’s wastewater data and emergency department data suggest that COVID-19 spread may be approaching a plateau, with national averages going up less in late August than they had previously. And test positivity (as averaged from the network of sites reporting to the CDC) went down slightly in the last week of August, both nationally and for some states in the Northeast, South, and West — though these are preliminary trends that could change in the next update. 

The CDC’s disease forecasting center similarly reports that COVID-19 cases are “declining or likely declining” in 15 states as of September 2, including California, Texas, Florida, and other states across the West and South. Cases are “growing or likely growing” in 24 states, per the center.

However, I’m hesitant to say for sure that the COVID-19 wave has reached its peak in these regions because wastewater data continues to show potential increases. The CDC only reported a decrease in SARS-CoV-2 levels in the West for the week ending August 30, not in the South. WWSCAN and Biobot also report increases and plateaus in these regions. The trends will likely become more clear in the coming weeks.

While writing this week’s update, I found that the CDC has made its COVID-19 data harder to find and interpret: the agency quietly took down its full COVID-19 dashboard, replacing it with a new page that reports fewer metrics. And the new charts on that page — for test positivity, emergency department visits, hospitalization rate, and share of deaths linked to COVID-19 — have Y axes that do not go all the way to zero, essentially making our high baseline of disease spread between surges look like nothing to worry about.

The CDC also appears to have removed a page reporting COVID-related emergency department visits by age, just as that dataset had shown higher ED rates for young children (under 12) than any other age group.

As the federal government further downplays COVID-19’s threat, several governors and state health agencies have taken actions to improve vaccine access in those states. So far, those states include: New York, Massachusetts, Colorado, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, California, Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii — the latter four in a new West Coast Health Alliance. (Thanks to Lucky Tran and Dr. Ruth for keeping track of these.)