(Reuters) – The United States lost more than 23,000 lives to COVID-19 last week, setting a record for the third week in a row, although the number of new infections and the number of hospital patients fell from the previous seven days. .
The country reported more than 1.5 million new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending January 17, down 12% from the previous week, and only eight of the 50 states saw an increase in new infections, according to a Reuters and county reports.
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The average number of patients with COVID-19 in hospitals fell by 2% from the previous week to about 128,000, the first drop in October, according to a Reuters analysis of data from the volunteer-led COVID follow-up project.
While some health officials have expressed concern about a more contagious variant of the virus that is spreading in the United States, California Secretary of Health and Human Services Dr. Mark Ghaly has been comforted by the fact that hospitals in California admitted 2,500 coronavirus patients every 24 hours, compared to 3,500 a day.
Ghaly told reporters last week that it was “the biggest signal to me that things are starting to flatten and potentially improve.”
Cumulatively, nearly 400,000 people have died from the new coronavirus, or one in 822 U.S. residents. The country set a record in a single day, with 4,336 deaths reported on January 12, according to Reuters analysis of state and county reports.
Alabama had the highest per capita mortality rate last week, at 16 per 100,000, followed by Arizona at 15.5 per 100,000.
The United States set a record on January 15, with more than 2.2 million COVID-19 tests performed in a single day. Last week, 11% of tests tested positive for the virus, down from 13.3% in the previous week, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project. The highest positive test rates were in Iowa, with 46%, Idaho with 40% and Pennsylvania, with 35%.
Graphic by Chris Canipe, written by Lisa Shumaker, edited by Tiffany Wu