Hospitals will likely see new COVID-19 admissions increase through the end of the month, federal modeling suggests.
Three COVID-19 forecasts to know:
Hospitalizations: Nationwide, daily COVID-19 hospital admissions are projected to increase over the next four weeks, with 600 to 8,700 new admissions likely reported May 27, according to the CDC's ensemble forecast from 18 modeling groups.
While the seven-day average of new COVID-19 admissions increased 16.6 percent last week compared to the week prior, the current tally of 2,219 daily average admissions is still down significantly from the more than 20,000 new admissions seen at the height of the omicron surge, according to data tracked by The New York Times.
Cases: Daily COVID-19 cases are projected to increase 105.2 percent in the next two weeks, according to modeling from Mayo Clinic. Forecasts suggest daily average cases will jump from 60,947.7 cases on May 7 to 125,059 by May 21. During the omicron surge, this figure hit a peak of more than 800,000, according to data tracked by The New York Times.
The nation's case rate is also expected to increase from 21.5 cases per 100,000 population to 38.1 per 100,000 over the same period.
Deaths: U.S. COVID-19 deaths are also expected to increase over the next month, according to the CDC's ensemble forecast from 20 modeling groups. The forecast projects 1,600 to 4,600 deaths likely reported in the week ending May 28, which would bring the nation's total COVID-19 death tally to a range of 1,000,000 to 1,007,000.
The CDC said its ensemble forecasts are among the most reliable for COVID-19 modeling, but they cannot predict rapid changes in cases, 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 May 9 at 4:25 p.m. CDT.