Every state reports fewer than 400 COVID hospitalizations per million people

The US achieved another positive milestone in the fight against coronavirus on Wednesday as every single state reported fewer than 400 hospitalizations per one million people for the first time since mid-October. 

A total of 79,979 people are currently hospitalized with the virus nationwide, according to COVID Tracking Project’s latest tally. That’s a decrease of nearly 26 percent from two weeks ago, and over 38 percent from a month ago.

The last time every state was reporting less than 400 hospitalizations per million people was on October 22, the database showed. New York currently has the highest rate, with 390 hospitalizations per million people.

The US added 95,194 new cases and 3,445 new deaths on Wednesday, bringing the seven-day rolling averages for each metric to 104,503 and 2,752, respectively.  

The promising recent trends came as the US continues ramping up vaccine distribution, with 44,769,970 doses administered to date, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

A new Gallup poll released Wednesday showed that Americans’ views on the vaccines are improving with 71 percent saying they are willing to receive one. That’s the highest figure on record since July, up from 65 percent in late December. are now willing to receive coronavirus.  

Of those who said they were unwilling to get a vaccine, 25 percent indicated that they are concerned the development process was rushed. 

The second most popular reason among that group, accounting for 22 percent, was wanting to wait and see that the vaccine is safe for others, followed by general distrust of vaccines (16%) and wanting to see how effective it is (9%).  

Responses were harshly split along party lines, with 91 percent of Democrats saying they are willing, compared with 51 percent of Republicans. 

Only 34 percent of respondents said they were satisfied with the progress of the vaccine rollout, compared with two thirds who said they were not.  

The CDC on Wednesday announced that people who have been fully vaccinated – meaning they received both doses of either the Pfizer or Moderna jabs – do not need to quarantine if they are exposed to someone with the virus.  

‘Fully vaccinated persons who meet criteria will no longer be required to quarantine following an exposure to someone with COVID-19,’ the agency said.    

‘At this time, vaccinated persons should continue to follow current guidance to protect themselves and others, including wearing a mask, staying at least 6 feet away from others, avoiding crowds, avoiding poorly ventilated spaces, covering coughs and sneezes, washing hands often, following CDC travel guidance, and following any applicable workplace or school guidance, including guidance related to personal protective equipment use or SARS-CoV-2 testing.’ 

As of Wednesday one dose of a vaccine has been administered to 33,783,384 people, which equals to just over 10.2 percent of the US population percent of the population. 

Just over 10,469,500 Americans have now received both doses of a vaccine, amounting to just shy of 3.2 percent of the population. 

In other news on Wednesday, California is now poised to surpass New York as the state with the highest COVID-19 death toll in the US, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, with more than 45,000 fatalities in each. 

As of Wednesday evening, California’s toll stood at 44,995, just behind New York’s 45,140 fatalities from Wednesday morning. The two states have been the hardest hit in terms of sheer numbers of fatalities and California has had more COVID-19 case than any other, with 3.4 million infections since the pandemic began. 

The pandemic has taken inverse trajectories in New York and California. While New York’s cases and fatalities surged to more than 14,000 cases and 1,200 in a single day at their respective peaks, California was one of the first states to lockdown, and had a relatively mild spring for COVID-19. 

Now, New York’s deaths are staying well below 200 a day, while a surge of infections overwhelmed California’s hospitals after the holidays, keeping daily fatalities above 500 for almost every day of last month.  

Even as California approaches a grim milestone now, there are encouraging signs that the pandemic may be reaching a plateau in the US – at least for the moment.  

The seven-day rolling average number of new cases a day has fallen to its lowest level since November 7. At 104,503, the average number of daily infections is now about 58 percent lower than it was a month ago, on January 10, according to the COVID Tracking Project.   

While US deaths in a 24-hour period surpassed 3,000 again on Wednesday, that trend in fatalities, too, is moving in the right direction at last.  The seven-day average of daily deaths is now 2,752 – down from 3,254 two weeks ago.   

Despite its appallingly high number of fatalities, the tide seems to be turning for California too, with 8,390 new cases recorded Wednesday, compared to some 40,000 a day being recorded a day in January. 

California’s death rate is also starting to decline after months of relentless growth, with weekly fatalities down by around 20 percent from their January peak. However, the state also recorded its first two cases of the more infectious, vaccine dulling ‘super-covid’ variant that first emerged in South Africa on Wednesday. 

And cases are now down in 43 states, compared to new infection rates two weeks ago, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project. In the remaining four states, daily cases are holding steady. The only place that daily infections are rising is the territory of Guam.