More than half of American adults now have at least the first dose of coronavirus vaccine, and there are promising signs that the shots are working: the average number of daily deaths has been declining in the past week.
The seven-day average death toll fell a quarter to 737 from seven days ago when 987 people died each day. There were 477 deaths on Monday, according to a DailyMail.com analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University.
However, average daily deaths rose slightly this week, up 0.4 percent from last week, according to Johns Hopkins and up two percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). ) starting Monday.
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Monday that there have been six consecutive days of rising deaths.
Cases have risen in at least 17 U.S. states in the past two weeks, according to a follow-up from DataUSA.io.
States like Michigan, where more than 50% of cases are caused by the UK variant, see cases rising, while Texas completely reopened, with only 42% of its cases caused by the variant, continues to see declines.
Texas has seen steady declines in its daily number of Covid-19 cases, despite a complete reopening. Cases have dropped by about 12% in the past two weeks
Meanwhile, cases have nearly tripled in Michigan this month (although they are now declining), despite the fact that it has kept the capacity of restaurants. An expert says that the UK version, which accounts for more than 55% of state cases, is to blame
States like Michigan, where more than 50 percent of cases are caused by the UK variant, see cases increase, while Texas completely reopened, with only 42 percent of cases caused by the variant, continues to see declines.
Daily hospital admissions for COVID-19 are also declining, with the seven-day rolling average down nearly three percent from last week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
However, new daily infections are rising nationally, by about six percent from last week, to more than 68,000 a day, including 67,933 yesterday.
“I want to admit that we are still in a complicated stage [of the pandemic]”Dr. Walensky said in a press briefing by the White House Covid response team on Monday.
On the one hand, more people in the United States are being vaccinated every day at an accelerated rate. On the other hand, cases and hospitalizations are on the rise in some areas of the country, and cases among younger people who have not yet been vaccinated are also on the rise.
Divergent trends are indeed driven by the dominant UK variant, which is most prevalent in Tennessee, Michigan and Minnesota – all with daily increases in infections over the past 14 days.
Meanwhile, Texas saw a 12% decrease in daily cases over the same period.
This only serves to wait for the expectations of public health experts, if only reopening led to upward trends in cases.
Both Michigan and Texas lifted Covid restrictions last month. In fact, Texas lifted more restrictions and did so earlier than Michigan, which still has a statewide mask mandate and a 50% capacity limit for indoor dining.
However, Texas “is doing much better than you might expect in this circumstance,” Dr. Barry Bloom, a professor of public health and immunology at Harvard Public Schools’ Schoolist TH Chan, told the Wall Street Journal.
“I suppose it would be more of a fast-growing strain in Michigan.”
Michigan has one of the highest rates of change in the nation, second only to Tennessee.
It is estimated that 58% of its Covid cases are caused by the more infectious (and probably more deadly) variant B117 that has occurred in the UK, according to CDC data.
In Tennessee, about 61% of cases are caused by the variant.
And Minnesota is a close third, with B117 leading about 56% of infections.
Texas is not much lower in this list, ranking sixth with 43% of its infections caused by the variant.
But this is a difference of about 26% compared to the prevalence of the variant in Michigan and this may be enough to drive case trends in opposite directions in the two states.
Encouragingly, the wave could also turn into Michigan, despite the fact that the federal government has rejected requests from Governor Gretchen Whitmer and public health experts to increase the state’s vaccine supply.
For his part, Governor Whitmer also refused to reinstate several restrictions to slow the spread of COVID-19 in his state, despite requests from Dr. Anthony Fauci to do so.
After nearly tripling in a month to the latest peak of 7,870 average daily cases on April 10, daily infections have now dropped by 18% to 6,458 a day in Michigan.
Other states with a high prevalence of B117 are not as good.
In Tennessee, which has the highest case rate due to the British variant in the country, the average number of new daily infections has increased by almost 40% to 1,682 per day.
However, the race between vaccines and variants continues.
States like Michigan and Tennessee will need to start vaccinating sooner if they want to overcome variants that interfere with their progress toward herd immunity and lead to the accelerated spread of the virus.