COVID-19 hospitalizations decreased slightly in the week ending Aug. 31, though reported cases and deaths are still increasing nationwide, according to the CDC's COVID Data Tracker Weekly Review published Sept. 3.
Eleven statistics to know:
Reported cases
1. The nation's current seven-day case average is 153,246, a 4.9 percent increase from the previous week's average.
2. This increase is up from the 2.8 percent jump reported in the CDC's Aug. 27 weekly report.
3. The seven-day case average is 39.7 percent lower than the pandemic's highest average (253,948) recorded Jan. 10 and 1,217 percent higher than the lowest average of 2021 (11,636), recorded June 18.
Hospitalizations
4. The current seven-day hospitalization average for Aug. 25-31 is 12,156, a 1.7 percent decrease from the previous week's average.
Vaccinations
5. About 205.9 million people have received at least one dose — representing 62 percent of the total U.S. population — and more than 175 million people have gotten both doses, about 52.7 percent of the population.
6. The seven-day average number of vaccines administered daily was 906,992 as of Sept. 2, a 3.3 percent increase from the previous week.
Variants
7. Based on an analysis of specimens collected in the two weeks ending Aug. 28, the CDC estimates the delta variant accounts for more than 99 percent of all U.S. COVID-19 cases.
Deaths
8. The current seven-day death average is 1,047, up 3.7 percent from the previous week's average. Some historical deaths have been excluded from these counts, the CDC said.
9. The seven-day death average is 71.3 percent lower than the pandemic's highest average (3,644), recorded Jan. 13, and 449.7 percent higher than the lowest average (190), recorded July 10.
Testing
10. The seven-day average for percent positivity from tests is 9.6 percent, down 7.7 percent from the previous week.
11. The nation's seven-day average test volume for the week of Aug. 20-26 was nearly 1.4 million, up 4.1 percent from the prior week's average.