We’re not out of the woods yet, but the latest numbers are encouraging.
Coronavirus cases across the country appear to be waning, according to the latest data. This is promising news as the Omicron variant has caused spikes around the nation and the globe. Here’s what that means for you.
Where are cases going down?
The number of daily cases nationwide has dropped from 825,000 on Jan. 15 to roughly 706,000 per day, and analysis by NBC shows that close to half of the states, which includes California and Georgia, have already gotten past the worst of their surges. You can look closer at which states are seeing their cases trend downward right here.
And there’s better news: Dr. Anthony Fauci expects the Omicron wave to drop in “most” states by mid-February.
“As we get into the next weeks to month or so, we’ll see throughout the entire country the level of infection get to below what I call that area of control,” he told ABC’s This Week.
But we’re not out of the woods yet
Dr. Fauci expects “more pain” ahead in parts of the country, where vaccination rates remain low and hospitalizations continue to hit record highs. Echoing these sentiments, the World Health Organization says this decline in cases represents “plausible hope for stabilization and normalization,” but also warned it’s dangerous to assume that there won’t be another variant after Omicron. This is why the agency believes it’s especially important to hit its key targets, like vaccinating 70 percent of the world’s population.
“There are different scenarios for how the pandemic could play out and how the acute phase could end,” says WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “But it’s dangerous to assume that Omicron will be the last variant or that we are in the endgame.”
The U.S. still finds itself in a delicate situation. Omicron-driven surges are causing sky-high hospitalizations, and the U.S. saw a pandemic high of 142,388 just two weeks ago. To put that into perspective, last winter’s hospitalization peak was slightly lower at 142,315.
What about immunity?
Public health officials believe that the Omicron variant will undoubtedly lead to much higher levels of immunity. Although it’s more contagious than previous variants, it’s also milder and less likely to lead to severe cases among those who have been vaccinated. But there’s no telling whether this protection will hold up over time as new variants emerge.
So when can we expect to return to a sense of normalcy? Scientists predict that the coronavirus will eventually turn into an endemic, meaning it will start circulating more regularly among the population and cause surges from time to time. But how threatening these variants could be to public health is a big unknown.
“This pandemic, like all other pandemics before it, will end, but it is far too early to relax,” says Dr. Hans Kluge, the regional director of WHO Europe.
