States reported 2 million tests, 223k cases, 128,947 people currently hospitalized with COVID-19, and 3,915 deaths. 
After holiday disruptions, our core metrics stabilize at different rates. We believe the bulk of holiday-related case and death backlogs have been reported, but that we're only now seeing a lot of the test backlogs, hence today's new 7-day average record.
As the data normalizes, the U.S. is still reporting more than 200,000 cases and 3,000 deaths per day. These are the highest levels of the pandemic.
The bright spot is our most consistent metric: current hospitalizations. This week, they appear to have leveled off.
That said, there are still more than 2x the number of hospitalized patients now as during previous surges.
That said, there are still more than 2x the number of hospitalized patients now as during previous surges.
The hospitalization dynamics are also complicated, as we'll discuss in our weekly review. Some areas remain under tremendous strain.
Here's that weekly look. Testing data may be back online after the holidays and case data is beginning to stabilize. As noted, we seem to be seeing the first signs of hospitalizations slowing down at a national level. covidtracking.com/analysis-updat…
COVID-19 deaths are 25% higher than any other week since the pandemic began. For scale, COVID-19 deaths reported this week exceed the CDC's estimate of 22K flu-related deaths during the entire 2019-2020 season.
Our eyes are on 5 states this week: AL, AZ, CA, GA, and FL―where surges in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are steadily growing. Alarmingly, AZ currently has the worst per-capita new case numbers in the world.
We recently released a visualization of the @HHSGOV hospital data. It is a weekly average for COVID-19 metrics for each individual hospital across the country. This week, facilities across the South (though especially in Alabama) are under serious pressure.
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