By the numbers: On average, roughly 63,000 Americans per day were diagnosed with coronavirus infections over the past week. That’s a 17% increase from the week before, and echoes the rising caseloads of the pandemic’s second wave last summer.
- Average daily caseloads increased over the past week in 25 states. The biggest spikes were in Michigan and New York.
- Even as vaccinations continue to climb, new cases only declined in five states, mainly in the Southeast.
What we’re watching: Because so many seniors have been vaccinated — 73% have gotten at least one dose — this fourth wave is likely to be a lot less deadly than the previous ones.
- Many states have also prioritized vaccinating people with underlying health conditions, which will also help constrain the increase in severe illness and death.
Yes, but: More coronavirus is always a bad outcome, and this fourth wave is a foreseeable, preventable failure that risks dragging out the pandemic and leaving more people at risk in the process.
- Millions of younger Americans with high-risk medical conditions haven’t yet been vaccinated, and therefore are still susceptible to serious illness and death as the virus spreads more aggressively.
- Hospitalizations are still rising — they’re just not likely to increase as dramatically as they have before.
- Greater spread also fosters the growth of new variants. The variants driving this outbreak are more contagious than the original strain; future variants will likely be less susceptible to our existing vaccines.
- Failing to control the virus now means it’ll be hanging around and flaring up longer into the future.
The bottom line: The vaccines work, and will spare us a lot of the death and suffering of previous surges. But four waves of infection in one year represents a clear failure to control the virus through any other means, and that will continue to hurt us.
Go deeper:Coronavirus cases are rising all over the world
Each week, Axios tracks the change in new infections in each state. We use a seven-day average to minimize the effects of day-to-day discrepancies in states’ reporting.
