(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 patients in hospitals both declined from the previous seven days. .
The country reported more than 1.5 million new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending Jan. 17, a 12% drop from the previous week, and only eight of the 50 states reported an increase in the number of new ones. infections, according to a Reuters analysis of the state. and county reports.
(Open tmsnrt.rs/2WTOZDR in an external browser to see a related image)
The mean number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals fell 2% from the previous week to about 128,000, the first drop since October, according to a Reuters analysis of data from the volunteer-run COVID Tracking Project.
While some health officials have expressed concern about a more contagious variant of the virus spreading across the United States, California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly took comfort in the fact that California hospitals admitted 2,500 coronavirus patients every 24 hours, instead of 3,500 per day.
Ghaly told reporters last week that this was “the biggest signal to me that things are starting to level off and possibly improve.”
Cumulatively, nearly 400,000 people have died from the novel coronavirus, or one in 822 US residents. The country set a one-day record with 4,336 deaths on Jan. 12, according to Reuters analysis of state and county reports.
Alabama had the highest per capita death rate last week at 16 per 100,000 residents, followed by Arizona at 15.5 per 100,000 residents.
The United States set a record on January 15 with more than 2.2 million COVID-19 tests performed in one day. Last week, 11% of tests came back positive for the virus, up from 13.3% the week before, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project. The highest positive test rates were in Iowa at 46%, Idaho at 40%, and Pennsylvania at 35%.
Graphic by Chris Canipe, written by Lisa Shumaker, edited by Tiffany Wu