Although COVID-19 hospitalizations ticked up slightly last week, national disease modeling paints a foggy picture of whether this metric will continue to rise as highly transmissible omicron subvariants BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 spread nationwide.
Daily COVID-19 hospital admissions are projected to remain stable or have an uncertain trend in the U.S. over the next four weeks, with 1,400 to 7,400 new admissions likely reported on Nov. 18, according to the CDC's ensemble forecast from 15 modeling groups.
The nation's seven-day average of new hospital admissions was 3,245 as of Oct. 28, up from 3,233 the previous week, CDC data shows.
Two more forecasts to know:
Cases: Daily COVID-19 cases are projected to increase 86.3 percent in the next two weeks, according to modeling from Mayo Clinic. Forecasts suggest daily average cases will jump from 34,536.7 cases on Oct. 28 to 64,334 by Nov. 11.
The nation's case rate is also expected to increase from 13.5 cases per 100,000 population to 19.6 over the same period.
Deaths: COVID-19 deaths are projected to remain stable or have an uncertain trend over the next month, according to the CDC's ensemble forecast from 14 modeling groups. The forecast projects 1,100 to 4,200 deaths likely reported in the week ending Nov. 19, which translates to a daily total of 157.1 to 600.
The nation's current seven-day daily death average was 352 as of Oct. 30, down 6 percent in the last two weeks, according to data tracked by The New York Times.
The CDC said its ensemble forecasts are among the most reliable for COVID-19 modeling, but they cannot predict rapid changes in hospitalizations or deaths. Therefore, they should not be relied on "for making decisions about the possibility or timing of rapid changes in trends," the agency said.
Note: Mayo Clinic uses a Bayesian statistical model to forecast cases that automatically updates as new data becomes available. There is an uncertainty interval for forecast values, with lower and upper bounds that are not included in this list. To learn more about the data Mayo Clinic uses to forecast hot spots, click here. Becker's pulled the forecast values Oct. 31 at 10:20 a.m. CDT.