US COVID activity remains elevated as some indicators decline, but deaths increase

US COVID activity remains elevated as some indicators decline Though most indicators showed downward trends, deaths were up compared to the previous week. CIDRAP

The nation's COVID activity remains high, but there are more signs of decline in many areas, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today in its latest updates.

Test positivity showed another small decline and is at 16.4% nationally, but is higher in the Midwest and Middle Atlantic. Emergency department visits declined 10.2% from the previous week, but are still at the moderate level in some of the southeastern states....

One metric that rose last week was deaths, which were up 18.2% compared to the previous week, with COVID making up 2.6% of US deaths. For the week ending August 31, 663 people died from COVID-19, according to the CDC's provisional data. During August, COVID deaths averaged roughly 900 per week, the highest since March.

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