Covid-19 case counts in the U.S. are showing signs of falling from their recent highs but remain significant as the country heads into the fall.
The seven-day average of daily Covid cases is about 144,300 as of Sept. 12, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. That figure is down 12% over the past week and 14% from the most-recent peak in case counts on Sept. 1, when the country was reporting an average of around 167,600 cases per day.
“This is good news,” said Dr. Arturo Casadevall, chair of molecular microbiology and immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “It could represent that we have reached a peak and we are now on the way down.”
In other parts of the country, the delta variant is still taking hold.
According to Hopkins data, case counts in West Virginia have hit record levels, reaching an average of nearly 1,800 per day. Dr. Clay Marsh, the state’s Covid czar, said the most-recent surge has been more extreme and has happened more quickly than previous waves.
“We’re very concerned about getting out of this particular part of the pandemic because our hospital systems and ICUs have been challenged in a more severe way than we have before,” he said.
