The nation's seven-day average for COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths fell this week alongside cases, which have been declining for five consecutive weeks, according to the CDC's COVID data tracker weekly review published Oct. 22.
Nine numbers to know:
Reported cases
1. The nation's current seven-day case average is 73,079, a 15.1 percent decrease from the previous week's average.
Hospitalizations
2. The current seven-day hospitalization average for Oct. 13-19 is 6,004, a 10.3 percent drop from the previous week's average.
Vaccinations
3. About 219.6 million people — 66.2 percent of the total U.S. population — have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, and more than 189.9 million people, or 57.2 percent of the population, have received both doses.
4. About 11.6 million booster doses in fully vaccinated people have been reported.
5. The seven-day average number of vaccines administered daily was 795,156 as of Oct. 21, a 5.5 percent decrease from the previous week.
Variants
6. Based on projections for the week ending Oct. 16, the CDC estimates the delta variant accounts for more than 99 percent of all U.S. COVID-19 cases.
Deaths
7. The current seven-day death average is 1,253, down 4.3 percent from the previous week's average. Some historical deaths have been excluded from these counts, the CDC said.
Testing
8. The seven-day average for percent positivity from tests is 5.2 percent, down 6.6 percent from the previous week.
9. The nation's seven-day average test volume for the week of Oct. 8-14 was about 1.42 million, down 7.4 percent from the prior week's average.