🌤️Only 1 in 5 days of the pandemic have seen transmission as low as today
🌤️1 in 196 actively infectious
⚡️BUT still 1.7 million weekly infections, resulting in >85,000 LC cases and up to 1,000 deaths
I'll walk you through it...
🧵2 of 8 | PMC Dashboard, April 21, 2025 (U.S.)
We're in the 6th year. See the small red line, bottom left. Notice how closely it tracks the median (gray), year 4 (yellow), & year 5 (orange).
Acknowledging caveats, those are plausible gist-level scenarios for months ahead.
🧵3 of 8 | PMC Dashboard, April 21, 2025 (U.S.)
Expect steady transmission bouncing up and down around the current national lull-level estimate the next several weeks. 200-350k daily infections nationally.
This is about as low as lulls bottom out anymore.
🧵4 of 8 | PMC Dashboard, April 21, 2025 (U.S.)
🌤️Moderate Transmission: 9 states + DC
☀️High/Very High: None
Note, the CDC updated its dashboard as usual Friday BUT w/no state-level data. This previously warranted a note. None offered. Fortunately, the 3-day blackout is over.
🧵5 of 8 | PMC Dashboard, April 21, 2025 (U.S.)
Yes, a national "lull" but always with regional variation.
☀️1 in 240 in the West actively infectious
🌩️1 in 118 in the South (worse)
In Louisiana, it's still at about 1 in 90, using the PMC multiplier. 🌩️🌩️
🧵6 of 8 | PMC Dashboard, April 21, 2025 (U.S.)
It might surprise you to learn that up to 1,000 Americans would be expected to die from the COVID infections they get this week -- during a transmission lull!
Use/improve and share across platforms. In the report (pg. 2), I note the CDC is making wastewater analytic ethics decisions via AI. 😮 More on that later. pmc19.com/data
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During this 12th COVlD wave, the CDC reports 1-in-3 states have "High" or "Very High" levels.
PMC estimates the proportion of residents actively infectious (prevalence):
◾️USA: 1 in 67
◾️IA: 1 in 27
◾️MI: 1 in 25
◾️IN & CT: 1 in 23
◾️ME: 1 in 21
◾️OK & SD: 1 in 17
🧵1/
On average, Americans have have 5.0 cumulative SARS-CoV-2 infections.
This week's infections are expected to result in 1/4 to 1 million new #LongCOVID conditions and ≈2,000 excess deaths.
🧵2/
The wave peak is now estimated >10% higher than last week at 1.2 million new daily infections, nearly double the Delta wave.
We expect sustained high transmission (≈600,000 to 750,000 new daily infections) the next few weeks as COVlD circulates through schools/families.
🧵3/
Based on today's CDC & Biobot data, we estimate the following for the week of Jan 19:
🔸1 in 52 people in the U.S. actively infectious
🔸25% chance of exposure in a room of 15 ppl
🔸Nearly 1 million new daily infections
🔸5 cumulative infections per person all-time (avg)
🧵1/5
Transmission estimates have been marginally corrected upward.
11 states have Very High COVlD levels:
🔸PA: 1 in 25 estimated actively infectious
🔸MI: 1 in 23
🔸OH & KY: 1 in 22
🔸SD: 1 in 20
🔸NE & IA: 1 in 18
🔸IL & ME: 1 in 17
🔸IN: 1 in 16
🔸WV: 1 in 11
🧵2/5
We're in the middle of a 12th COVlD wave.
The peak has likely passed, but with students headed back to school, transmission is expected to remain high for at least the next several weeks.
The size of the winter COVlD wave has been revised upward as post-holiday data come in.
We estimated 1 in 55 people in the U.S. are actively infectious.
🔥WV: 1 in 14
🔥IN: 1 in 15
🔥MI & OH: 1 in 21
🔥MO: 1 in 22
🔥CT: 1 in 24
🔥KS: 1 in 25
🔥MA & IL: 1 in 27
Quick 🧵 1/4
Nationally, we are seeing an estimated 892,000 new daily SARS-CoV-2 infections, meaning a 1 in 4 chance of exposure in a room of 15 people. Risk varies considerably by state.
We are approaching an average of 5 infections per person since pandemic onset.
🧵 2/4
We are in the 12th COVlD wave of the U.S.
Current transmission is higher than 68% of all days since the pandemic onset in 2020.
🧵 3/4
You might not have heard, but the northeastern U.S. is in a COVlD surge.
We use wastewater levels to derive estimates of the proportion of people actively infectious in each state (prevalence), e.g., 1 in 24 people in Connecticut.
We told you that 109,000-175,000 Americans would died of COVID (excess deaths) in 2025.
Today, the CDC estimates 101,000 deaths/year (flat from Oct 2022 to Sep 2024), and likely higher when considering more nebulous non-acute excess deaths (heart attack 6 months later). 1/5
The CDC estimates are actually higher than I would have guessed, given their methodology, which models estimates based on easily countable factors in healthcare and expert input on multiplier values. It lends credence to the PMC upper bound of excess deaths of 175,000/yr.
2/5
What's troubling is the CDC has annual mortality flat. My expectation based on mortality displacement and Swiss Re data is that it should be declining. If is stays flat, we're running on something like breast+prostate cancer or lung cancer deaths per year in perpetuity.
3/5