Oct. 16, 2023 – Severe cases of COVID-19 that require hospitalization continue to decline in the U.S., according to the CDC’s latest update on the pandemic.
Hospitalizations dipped 8% for the week ending Oct. 7, continuing a downward trend that started in early September. With 16,766 people newly hospitalized during the first week of October, the rate is still far off from the record low of 6,300 in June. The CDC considers hospitalization to be an indication of severity of currently circulating strains.
During the first week of October, COVID contributed to about 2.5% of all deaths in the U.S., which is a small decline from the week prior. Since the start of the pandemic, the disease has contributed to a total of 1.15 million deaths.
Indicators of how common COVID is at the community level continue to decline, as well. Emergency department visits due to COVID were down nearly 18% and the positive test rate dipped about a percentage point to 10%, according to the agency’s COVID Data Tracker.
The retreat of the virus is reflected in the CDC’s wastewater monitoring, as well, which shows declines in the levels of SARS-CoV-2 detected across about 1,000 monitoring sites. Those levels began dropping in September. Another wastewater tracker from Biobot Analytics shows that detections in wastewater were leveling off following the month-long decline.
The predominant variant remains EG.5, also known as “Eris,” which accounts for nearly 24% of all cases and topped the variant list starting in August. A strain named HV.1 increased during the prior two weeks from about 13% to 19.5%. The other notably circulating variants are FL.1.5.1 and XBB.1.16.6. The highly mutated strain that alarmed public health officials over the summer, called BA.2.86, has still failed to appear on the CDC’s watchlist, which lists variants with as little as less than 1% of cases in the U.S.
The CDC continues to urge everyone ages 6 months and up to get an updated COVID-19 booster shot this fall, even if they have previously been vaccinated, to improve protection against severe cases of the disease or death. The website vaccines.gov offers a lookup tool to find nearby clinics or pharmacies offering the shots.