The good news we all need — after more than a year of difficult news, it appears that the U.S. pandemic may be turning a corner.
Here are six stats revealing progress made:
1. Nationwide, new COVID-19 cases have fallen to the lowest levels since September, with about 38,000 new infections reported each day, reports The New York Times.
2. Michigan and New York, two states that have seen recent COVID-19 surges, each reported at least a 40 percent drop in new cases over the last two weeks, according to the Times.
3. Nearly half of Americans — 46.4 percent — have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose, while 35.4 percent of the population is fully vaccinated, reports the CDC.
4. The CDC's vaccine advisory panel voted May 12 to recommend using Pfizer and BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine in children as young as 12. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, MD, released a statement saying she has adopted the panel's recommendation, making it an official CDC recommendation.
5. The national COVID-19 test positivity rate in the U.S. is 3.6 percent, according to a seven-day average from Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins University. "It was 15 percent in January," White House COVID-19 adviser Andy Slavitt tweeted May 12. "This is an all time low for the pandemic. This news is nothing but good."
6. The nation is reporting an average of 600 COVID-19 deaths each day, the lowest average in 10 months, according to The Associated Press.