More glad tidings tonight my fellow Chris-tee-ans.
14-day changes
-68% Cases. Better by 1% than yesterday's.
-38% Hospitalizations. Better by 2%.
-13% Deaths. Better by 1%.
7-day daily averages
124,324 New Cases. Down 16k/day for a week from yesterday's it. 112k over the week. Astounding.
83,171 Hospitalizations. Down 4k/day from yesterday, 28k few H's than yesterday's 7-day ave.
2,317 Deaths. Down 11/day over yesterday's 7-day, 77 fewer dead in the last week. Honestly have to say that is so few that it is disappointing.
Disappointing. Deaths are still not at Delta's Peak, are on the downslope and upslope of Trump Winter, and still exceed the Trump Liberation Peak. Double-digit drops are nothing to sneeze at and we've had two consecutive minus D-D's but only two, while H's fallen by one-third or more on three consecutive (non-lag) iterations of the 7-day. We need big drops in Deaths as we saw on the other side of the LIBERATION Peak.
Dr. Walensky gave a regular briefing of her agency's work ahead. She is going to relax the mask mandate recommendations with a "snap back" provision, for which critics have long advocated, if the metrics start moving north again. There was no preparation she mentioned as far as I am aware for the next variant. She's gotten caught with her long pants down twice now since becoming CDC director and she should be game-planning for the next one. For instance, ordering (recommending) development of pan-coronavirus vaccines, deciding what to do about fourth shots.
