Down, down, down

So, it looks like we might be coming down from the Omicron high. The US trend has been consistently down for a while. As a matter of fact, a large part of the world appears to be headed down. In Image 1, all continents appear to be on a downward trend.

Are we approaching a lull? I know a lot of Americans are ready to get back to normal after 2 years.

One thing to note though, all continents are still at a very elevated levels of infection, so we are nowhere near to being done.

Even the top ten countries are showing tremendous strides in infection reductions. What’s interesting about Image 2 is that Russia and Germany have overtaken the US – first time ever! That was last night, for the first time, the US fell from the top spot. Well, maybe India held top spot last March when they were undergoing the dramatic Delta surge and posting to LinkedIn requests for help in obtaining oxygen.

Still, the US has made improvements.

Note: data for the graphs pertaining to the countries around the world come from Wikipedia while data for the graphs pertaining to US states come from CDC. See box “Sources of Data” found at end of post.

Image 3 shows how the rate of increase in the US has leveled out to almost a horizontal movement rather than a vertical movement. The Image charts cumulative figures for each day rather than the daily infection count.

Individual States

Let’s look at how the individual states in each region look. I think I’m going to do only the cases and hospitalizations.

Cases First

It looks like all states, with the exception of Maine, are on a downward trend. I hope these Power BI charts are still working because this would be the first time all regions and almost all states are improving. A lot of states are still showing elevated levels though, so we are not out of the woods yet.

Hospitalizations Next

Let’s look at hospitals though because this is where overrun hospitals have adverse impact on general health care. If hospitals are overrun, then other health emergencies can’t get the care and people could die from not being able to get a bed in a hospital.

And it looks like all states are showing downward trends in hospitalization, albeit at a still elevated level, but we’re going in the right direction.

Conclusions?

Can we throw away our masks and start living life to its fullest without considering whether to gather inside or not? Personally, since the case counts are still at an elevated level, I would say, “Not so fast”. Those who are older and/or have health issues, I would say continue with the cautionary measures.

But we are going in the right direction. Let’s cross our fingers and hope that we have a real lull over the spring and summer.