It's HOT COVID SUMMER in the Deep South. No geographic/political prejudices, see next.
Covid is burning through Guam, Louisiana, Florida, and Texas (underestimate due to sites down).
PMC COVID Dashboard, July 28, 2025 (U.S.)
🧵4/12
It's also HOT COVID SUMMER out West. No geographic/political prejudices, see previous.
California and Hawai'i have unrelenting transmission.
PMC COVID Dashboard, July 28, 2025 (U.S.)
🧵5/12
New York State is mostly in the dark on COVID transmission. The CDC has most sites offline. The NYS dashboard includes the most recent estimates. It was getting bad in NYC before lights out.
Texas has fallen from High to Moderate, but it appears to be an artifact with many sites going offline this week.
High transmission sites going offline adds noise to the forecast. Uncertain times.
PMC COVID Dashboard, July 28, 2025 (U.S.)
🧵7/12
Today you experienced a typical day in the last 5.5 years of the pandemic, with transmission higher than 47% of days, and lower than 53%.
Typical means that in a room of 35 people, there's a 1 in 4 chance of exposure.
PMC COVID Dashboard, July 28, 2025 (U.S.)
🧵8/12
The year-over-year graph shows that current transmission (red line) is similar to that of 2 years ago (yellow line) and 4 years ago (blue line).
The forecast formally models year-over-year trends and recent transmission. We are estimated to soon reach 500,000 daily infections, but with low real-time data quality, regional variation, and much uncertainty.
PMC COVID Dashboard, July 28, 2025 (U.S.)
🧵9/12
Spain offers an illustrative example of uncertainty ahead. Wastewater data are limited to sites (albeit many) in the Barcelona area and reported monthly. XFG took off with limited warning.
The U.S. sites have much better representation and report more frequently so can spot a surge with greater warning.
Note: The variant-naming system (XFG) is not community-centered. It's jargon. Even the nickname, "stratus," is unhelpful jargon. For communities dealing with this jargon, we recommend the following memory tip:
XFG = X-FG, X-FoG, or eXtra brain FoG.
Each reinfection increases the cumulative chances of brain fog and other neurologic, vascular, and multisystemic damage. x.com/michael_hoerge…
PMC COVID Dashboard, July 28, 2025 (U.S.)
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It's a good time to stock up on masks and tests. WellBefore is my go-to brand for disposable kids' masks. I've made 2 major purchase orders the past month to donate to local kids.
I receive no preferential discounts, kickbacks, or other financial benefit from any company, including in the COVID space. I talk to many company leaders regularly and worked out the 10% discount.
Let me know if the discount code works or if you need any help with sizing.
PMC COVID Dashboard, July 28, 2025 (U.S.)
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Serious people continue to take COVID very seriously. We distributed 1,000 tests in 90 minutes today.
Serious folks mask, vax, test, and clean the air. Top health systems require universal masking.
PMC COVID Dashboard, July 28, 2025 (U.S.)
🧵12/12
If you found this thread helpful, please RT the first Tweet, like each post to boost, use/improve the images here and on the dashboard, and share across platforms. pmc19.com/data
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