Just plugged today's CDC numbers into my new forecasting model (releases Mon). My initial reaction was "Jesus Christ. That's bad. That's really really bad."
If you live in the West in particular, it's currently about as bad as last winter. About 1 in 23 infectious out West.
Those of us modeling have been talking about the late-summer wave -- all year -- as a given.
The 1-day isolation policy, the lack of a twice-annual updated vax, & the vilification of masks are emblematic of #LaissezFairePublicHealth. A wintery summer surge is the result.
I hope the present numbers are revised downward, but there is no reason to suspect that. In my view, the current estimates are as likely to be overestimates as underestimates.
Here's the updated CDC COVID "heat" map released today, recolored with dark red to equal more transmission.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
U.S. CDC numbers just released. Good news (for those not in Louisiana). "Only" a 5% national increase.
2025 has closely tracked with summer 2023 transmission. A 12-13% increase would have been expected based on those numbers. That said...
real-time data have been prone to retroactive corrections. This is frustrating, of course, because it leaves people making decisions based on data that are only of good quality when 2 weeks old.
If we saw a 12% increase this week, I'd say look at 2023 for a glimpse...
at the future. Instead, I would consider these plausible scenarios:
🔹Wave still similar to 2023
🔹Later wave with schools more implicated
🔹Something temporarily much better
COVlD is surging in 7 states, according to the CDC.
🔹Hawai'i (Very High)
🔹California (High)
🔹Nevada (High)
🔹Texas (High)
🔹Louisiana (High)
🔹Florida (High)
🔹South Carolina (High)
2. PMC COVlD Dashboard, July 21, 2025 (U.S.)
Western surge:
🔹California: 1 in 63 actively infectious, much higher in LA & Bay areas
🔹Hawai'i: 1 in 35 actively infectious
🔹Nevada: 1 in 63 actively infectious
These are wastewater derived estimates, not from individual tests
3. PMC COVlD Dashboard, July 21, 2025 (U.S.)
Southern surge:
🔹Texas: 1 in 56
🔹Louisiana (New Orleans): 1 in 65
🔹Florida: 1 in 66
🔹South Carolina: 1 in 71
Again, wastewater estimates (wise indicator), not individual testing (low-quality data).
We estimate 1 in 148 Americans are actively infectious. This equates to 2.3 million infections/week, expected to result in >100,000 new #LongCOVID conditions & >800 deaths.
A room of 100 people is a coin toss of an exposure.
2) PMC COVlD Dashboard, July 14, 2025 (U.S.) 🧵
Transmission (red) is closely tracking the path of 2 years ago (yellow). However, the incoming data are spotty. >20% of CDC states have limited/no data, & Biobot hasn't reported in weeks.
Could be MUCH worse or slightly better.
3) PMC COVlD Dashboard, July 14, 2025 (U.S.) 🧵
Our model formalizes the mathematical assumptions in those predictions. If transmission follows what we know in terms of how waves grow or slow generally and historical patterns, this is what we'd expect.
The spottiness of the current real-time data reduce precision substantially. Retroactive corrections can make the forecast jump around from better to worse from one week to the next. Expect the worst. Hope for the best.
🌍Want to track COVID transmission accurately worldwide?
This PMC thread walks you through leading dashboards with information more up to date than WHO & EU directories.
🧵 1/
The Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative (PMC) Dashboard provides weekly COVID updates for the U.S., using wastewater surveillance derived case estimation models and analytic forecasting.
Our international directory includes official government dashboards & those developed by citizen scientists.
We exclude countries that have stopped reporting in the past 2-12 months even if on EU or WHO lists. We also exclude low-quality data from opt-in testing programs.
🧵 3/
🔥Biggest uptick since Jan
🔥1 in 167 actively infectious
🔥>2 million weekly infections
🔥700-1,200 resulting excess deaths from weekly infections
Track transmission closer to home w/our new state & international resources 👇
🧵1/6
PMC COVlD Dashboard, Jun 23, 2025 (U.S.)
🔹With >90% probability, we have entered the 11th COVlD wave.
🔹In a room of 50 people, there is already a 1 in 4 chance of an exposure.
🔹We expect nearly 15 million infections in the next month, and rising.
🧵2/6
PMC COVlD Dashboard, Jun 23, 2025 (U.S.)
We continue to expect transmission to break 500,000 daily infections in the U.S. around July 9th.
This is the same prediction as last week, as the forecast was dead on. Yet, there is considerably uncertainty around this timing.
Current transmission (red line) closely tracks that of summer 2023 (yellow line).
We expect to break 500k daily infections between July 9 and the end of July. Our current forecast...
2) PMC COVlD Dashboard, June 16, 2025 (U.S.)
Our current forecast is a bit more aggressive, predicting breaking 500k daily infections by July 9. The 2023 trend suggests end of July.
The 95% confidence interval shows large variation. Note that...
3) PMC COVlD Dashboard, June 16, 2025 (U.S.)
Note that CDC and Biobot both had retroactive corrections to last week's data, meaning the relative "lull" will last a little longer than the uncorrected data suggested. No big news on NB.1.8.1.