The Blog

2021-

2021-01-21 b
THE COVID-CON II (post-inaugural announcement)

Current, Deadly U.S. Coronavirus Surge Has Peaked, Researchers Say

The devastating fall and winter wave of coronavirus infections that is causing so much misery across the U.S. appears to have finally peaked, according to several researchers who are closely tracking the virus.

While another surge remains possible, especially with new, more infectious variants on the horizon, the number of new daily infections in the current wave appears to have hit a high in the past week or two and has been steadily declining in most states since, the researchers say.

"Yes, we have peaked in terms of cases," says Ali Mokdad, who has been tracking the pandemic at the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. "We are coming down, slowly. This is very good news — very good news."

And while hospitals in some places are still being overwhelmed, the overall number of hospitalized patients also appears to have reached a peak and begun to decline slightly. It's down from a peak of over 132,000 patients on Jan. 6 to 122,700 as of Wednesday.

Declines in daily deaths could soon follow, experts say.

"Based on current trends, the worst appears to be over," says Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "We are headed to a better place." (read more)

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