COVID-19 case counts in the U.S. ticked down week over week, based on provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The U.S. tallied about 455,000 new COVID-19 cases over the seven days ending Dec. 14, and 2,703 deaths in that same time frame. In contrast, the counts one week earlier were about 469,000 cases and 3,115 deaths.
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For comparison, the largest loss of life during the pandemic was seen in mid-January 2021, when COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. totaled approximately 23,400 in one week. Conversely, weekly deaths dropped to under 1,700 during early July 2021.
Among the top 25 COVID hot spots in the country of late – as measured by the highest average case counts over a week per 100,000 people – six were in Kansas and four were in Oklahoma.
Because average case rates are calculated per 100,000 people, it’s worth noting that even a relatively small number of infections in a small community can lead to a higher case rate. Loving County, Texas, for instance, had a reported tally of six cases over a week’s time, but with a recent population of about 170, that translates to an average rate of 507 daily cases per 100,000 people.
Case counts may be of limited use as a COVID surveillance measure, however, particularly given the rise of at-home tests.
But other measures can help give a sense of the current state of the pandemic. For example, as the nonpartisan data center USAFacts explains, the CDC has a "community level" metric that looks not only at case rates but also incorporates COVID-19 hospital admissions and the average percentage of hospital beds occupied by COVID-19 patients.
As of data calculated Dec. 15, across U.S. states, territories and the District of Columbia, about 56% of “counties” were considered to be at a “low” COVID-19 community level, according to data from the CDC. About 9% were at the “high” level, while 35% were at the “medium” level.
Hawaii is the only state where all of its regions were at the “low” level. The states with the largest proportion of their counties at the “medium” or “high” level were New Jersey (100%), Connecticut (88%), Massachusetts (86%) and Illinois (84%).
