The U.S. is seeing a 9.7% rise in COVID-19 hospital admissions — 18,119 in the most recent week — according to CDC data. Emergency department visits for the virus have also gone up during the same time period by nearly 2% and deaths increased by 8.3%, as of Nov. 18.
Meanwhile, test positivity rates are actually down slightly. CDC data shows a decrease of 1.7% in test positivity in the last week. This early indicator could signal a change in transmission in coming weeks, but more time indoors, traveling and gathering for holidays tends to increase spread.
Three more updates:
- A new COVID-19 variant, BA.2.86, is on the rise and continues to be tracked by the CDC, which recently reported a three-fold increase.
- Six states have reported the largest total number of COVID-19 hospitalizations in the last week including: California (2,011), New York (1,154), Texas (1,135), Illinois (908), Ohio (889) and Pennsylvania (881).
- Only 14% of Americans have received the latest COVD-19 vaccine, which the CDC said Nov. 22 is lower than it would like to see.
- As of Nov. 28, the World Health Organization granted emergency use authorization of Novavax's updated protein-based COVID-19 vaccine.
- Patients who became infected with COVID-19 in 2020 and later reported experiencing long COVID have a 76% chance of becoming reinfected, according to a study published Nov. 21 in The Lancet.