U.S. COVID Cases Pass 97M As Hospitalizations Continue to Decline, But For How Long?

The United States has surpassed 97 million COVID-19 cases. According to Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, there have been 97,023,285 cases resulting in 1,065,841 deaths representing a mortality rate of 1.1%. 

Hospitalizations continue their downward trend from the end of July. According to Our World in Data, there are just under 21,000 COVID hospitalizations (20,942) as of October 16th. That is nearly a 50% reduction from the end of July when it eclipsed 40,000 on July 28thh (40,131).

However, there are indications this downward trend in both hospitalizations and deaths will soon come to an end as we head into winter as it has been predicted these number will start to go up in the next three to four weeks. The silver lining here is that the upward trend is not expected to surpass the 150,000 COVID hospitalizations the U.S. had at the peak of Omicron in January of this year. 

COVID might not be front and center again, but it will never leave.