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 0.7 in every 100,000 people were hospitalized for COVID-19 during the week ending November 22.
- COVID-19 test positivity stayed about the same, with 3.1% of COVID-19 tests returning positive results during the week ending November 22 and 3.1% positive during the week ending November 29.
- SARS-CoV-2 concentration in wastewater decreased 4% between November 22 and November 29, and the national wastewater viral activity level is “very low,” per the CDC.
- SARS-CoV-2 concentration in wastewater increased 16% between November 19 and November 26, and the national wastewater trend is “high,” per WastewaterSCAN.
- Healthcare visits for influenza-like illness increased 16% between the week ending November 22 and the week ending November 29, and this metric is nearly at the level indicating the official start of flu season.
COVID-19 trends for the last week of November are similar to the rest of the month: disease levels are increasing in the Midwest and Northeast, but less so in the West and South. Our latest data include the Thanksgiving holiday, but not the full extent of outbreaks that followed it. Meanwhile, flu spread is accelerating faster than COVID-19 spread.
Wastewater data from the CDC, WastewaterSCAN, and Biobot Analytics all agree that the Midwest is seeing the highest SARS-CoV-2 levels in sewage as of late November. WWSCAN and Biobot also report a clear increase in the Northeast, but the CDC reports a slight decrease in this region as of November 29.
The CDC also reports a slight decrease in its national trend, while WWSCAN and Biobot report clear increases in theirs. Those CDC data are preliminary, though, and sometimes heavily impacted by reporting delays, which are common around holidays — this week, for example, the vast majority of wastewater testing sites in New York State (often a COVID-19 hotspot this time of year) did not update on the CDC dashboard. So I would not be surprised if the CDC’s national and Northeast trends are reversed in the next update.
Healthcare system metrics also continue to report relatively stable levels in their national averages, but increasing COVID-19 spread in the Midwest and Northeast. The CDC’s forecasting center estimates that, as of December 2, COVID-19 cases are “growing or likely growing” in 22 states, most of those in the Northeast and Midwest. Cases are “declining or likely declining” in seven states and “not changing” in 16 states, per the center.
National COVID-19 test positivity, as calculated from the network of testing labs still reporting to the CDC, has stayed very stable since late October (at about 3%). Test positivity for flu, on the other hand, is increasing dramatically: from about 1% for the week ending November 1 to 7.1% for the week ending November 29. We are also very close to the official threshold for flu season, which occurs when over 3% of doctors’ visits in a longstanding CDC surveillance network are due to fevers, coughs, and sore throats.
As I noted last week, far fewer Americans have received an updated COVID-19 vaccine this year than have received an updated flu vaccine. Vaccination rates for both viruses are also lower this year than in prior years, according to a report from CIDRAP. And our federal health agencies are doing anything but instilling confidence in these important (though far from perfect) public health tools. Last week, the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee, full of anti-vax members, voted to end a decades-old recommendation for all babies to get hepatitis B vaccines.
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[…] Last week, I was skeptical about the CDC’s report of declining SARS-CoV-2 levels in the Northeast’s wastewater. Indeed, the agency now reports that the Northeast’s regional wastewater viral activity level more than doubled between November 29 and December 6. These are still preliminary data, though, and the vast majority of sites in New York State (which has the most extensive surveillance network of states in this region) still don’t have recent data available on the CDC dashboard. So the true trend may be less drastic, but is still likely an increase. […]