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The good news is that cases continue to drop. Because last Monday was a holiday, it is possible that the case counts are lower than they should be and we could see a slight bounce back next week.
To close out the previous week, the case count went from 552950 to 584418 once all the data was in. That was still a 6% drop from the previous week and continues the trend of a slow gradual decline. In those seven weeks, the change was between -5.4% and -6.5% in five of the seven weeks so the rate has been very consistent.
Last week, the preliminary numbers were 431,835 newly reported cases. This would be a 26% drop from the previous week. That number will change as the missing data is reported but I suspect that the numbers are down because of Labor Day. It would not shock me to see a small increase next week. But, for now, we have eight consecutive weeks of declining cases. And, we have finally dropped below half of the peak of 912,216 cases during the week that ended on July 17th.
Vermont was the only state that saw cases rise last week. But their numbers are so low that it seems more likely that we are just getting some random fluctuations as there is currently no evidence of a new upward trend.
In terms of actual cases per million, West Virginia looks to be significantly higher than the rest of the country. Again, I suspect that Labor Day has artificially lowered the numbers in a lot of places so I wouldn’t make too much out of this right now. I’d expect that next week will see several states with rising case counts.
Last year at this time, the Delta wave had just peaked. There were 1,027,594 newly reported cases a year ago so we are well below that figure. Cases would continue to drop until the week ending on October 24th so we are a long way from passing last year’s numbers.
And, as a result, all states are below where they were at this time last year.
West Virginia ranked high at this time last year, but their total for this year is about half of what it was last year. That actually ranks them about in the middle as places like Wyoming, Tennessee, Arizona and Nevada have case counts that are 80% lower than they were at this time last year.
We did see a bigger than usual drop in cases this week but it is possible this is because of some disruption due to Labor Day. If next week’s totals are higher, that would not necessarily signal the start of a new wave up. So if cases are up next week, we’ll need additional time to process it.
But, even with some disruption in the numbers, the trend continues to be good. Cases continue to fall.
Facing Diagonal Wall 