New coronavirus cases, deaths, and hospitalizations reported over the last seven days are trending downward compared to the previous week, reflecting “improving” conditions on the ground, the COVID Tracking Project conceded on Thursday, echoing data maintained by Johns Hopkins University.
The tracking project, a component of the Atlantic magazine, stressed that new weekly testing figures also dropped.
However, it noted, “This is the second week in a row that hospitalizations seem to have dropped, which suggests that infections may be declining independently of testing reductions.”
“The falls in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths should be good news, and in reality, they likely do reflect an improving reality on the ground,” the COVID Tracking Project acknowledged in its weekly assessment.
This week’s drop was more pronounced in the number of new hospitalizations (8.4 percent), followed by the decline in weekly cases (seven percent), tests (five percent), and deaths (1.2 percent).
Due to day-to-day abnormalities in the daily reporting of the data, analysts present rates as seven-day rolling averages.
According to a Breitbart News analysis of tracking project data, the average growth in daily new deaths has plateaued at around 1,000 after a second spike that began in July and remained below peak levels. The May 7 peak (2,740) is more than double Thursday’s average count (1,065) of daily new fatalities.
For the most part, average daily infections have steadily declined in recent weeks after peaking in July. The peak is part of a second spike in new daily cases that began in June. The U.S. has averaged about 55,000 cases each day over the last week. That figure is about 20 percent lower than the peak on July 23 (67,000), data from the project showed.
On Thursday, new daily fatalities were trending down in slightly more than half of the country, compared to the previous seven days, data from the project showed. Several of the other states reported small or no increases at all.
As of Thursday, the average count of new daily cases had dropped in half of the country, with most of the other states only reporting small increases, according to Johns Hopkins data.
Hospitalizations, which stood at nearly 47,000 on Thursday, have also been dropping since late July, data from the project revealed.
On Thursday, the U.S. recorded 51,705 new cases and 1,163 deaths, it added.
The new cases marked a decrease of over 30 percent from a peak of over 77,000 on July 17. Meanwhile, deaths on Thursday were nearly 60 percent lower than the highest single-day count of 2,740 on May 7.
Weekly new cases were trending downward (26) or remained relatively flat (12) in 38 states, Johns Hopkins reported Thursday. New infections were going up in the rest of the country, including the nation’s capital.
The rate of new daily tests per 1,000 residents dropped in 20 states over the seven-day period that ended Thursday, the universtiy noted.
In the rest of the country, including the nation’s capital, the rate was going up (17) or remained relatively unchanged (14), it added.
The U.S. recorded over 365,000 new infections over the last week, marking a 20 percent decrease from the weekly peak of over 468,000 in July (12-18), the university revealed.
Over the past week, America recorded slightly over 7,000 new deaths, less than half of the highest single-week number of fatalities (15,534) reported in April (12-18).
The number of new cases (1.8 million) and fatalities (30,065) reported over the past month is also down compared to peak levels of infections in July (1.9 million) and deaths in April (60, 124).
America has averaged a daily test positivity rate of around 7.5 percent in the last seven days, tracking project data showed:
About six percent of tests came out positive on Thursday. However, it is too early to say whether it will continue to drop.
Despite the drop in the weekly testing tally, new tests increased by more than 200,000 on Thursday from the previous day to over 880,000, the tracking project noted. The U.S. averaged over 740,000 tests each day over the last week.
According to Worldometer, the United States has done more testing than any other advanced nation. Moreover, the U.S. reportedly leads the world in recoveries.
There is a patchwork of guidelines for reporting deaths and cases across the United States, with some states reporting probable fatalities and infections, resulting in different counts.
Johns Hopkins’ cumulative number of cases and deaths for the United States is higher than the count by the tracking project. The university relies on the COVID Tracking Project for some of its data.
As of Friday afternoon, COVID-19 (coronavirus disease) had infected about 5.3 million and killed 168,000, Johns Hopkins reported.