(Reuters) – The United States last week reported a 23% drop in new cases of COVID-19 and a 16% drop in the number of people hospitalized with the virus, with both figures for the fifth week at row down.
However, progress against the virus is threatened by several new variants, experts said, adding that face masks and social distance measures were still badly needed.
According to Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has linked about 4% of cases in the country to a more contagious variant first discovered in the UK.
“We have predictions that it will be the dominant species by the end of March,” she told CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
According to a Reuters analysis of state and county reports, the country registered more than 639,000 new COVID-19 cases in the week ending Feb. 14. Compared to the previous week, the number of new cases has increased in only three of the 50 states: Alaska, Nebraska and South Dakota.
(Open tmsnrt.rs/2WTOZDR in an external browser to see a state-by-state image.)
The death rate fell for the second week in a row, dropping 1.8% last week to 21,787. Excluding a death delay reported by Ohio, the number of fatalities fell 15% last week. Cumulatively, nearly 486,000 people have died of the virus in the United States, or one in 673 residents.
The average number of COVID-19 patients in U.S. hospitals dropped to 74,000 last week, the lowest since mid-November, according to a Reuters analysis of data from the volunteer-led COVID Tracking Project.
Nationally, 5.7% of COVID-19 tests were positive for the virus, the lowest level since the week ending Oct. 25, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project.
(Image: COVID-19 global tracker – here)
Graphic by Chris Canipe, written by Lisa Shumaker, edited by Tiffany Wu