The recently reported cases of Covid-19 in the U.S. have dropped from the previous day, dropping to less than 40,000 for the first time since the beginning of October, as the government’s leading infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, warned against the survey restrictions too early.
There were 38,222 new cases reported in the U.S. on Sunday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. This decreased from 53,215 on Saturday and 40,966 in the previous week. Sunday was the first day that the new cases reported were less than 40,000 since October 5, when they were 39,471.
The number of cases reported each day tends to be lower at the beginning of the week, as fewer people are tested at the weekend. Cases have generally fallen since the highs of about 300,000 recorded in January, but have fallen less rapidly in the past three weeks.
The country’s seven-day moving average of newly reported cases, which smooths out data irregularities, was 53,670 on Sunday, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of the Johns Hopkins data. The 14-day average was 56,600. When the seven-day average is less than the 14-day average, as it has since March 2, it indicates that new cases are falling.
There were 572 deaths reported on Sunday, according to Johns Hopkins data, a significant drop from 1,725 reported the day before. The number is also below the 678 registered a week earlier.
As Covid-19 deaths drop, states across the country are constantly encountering unreported deaths that are causing confusion in the data. The problems largely involve systems that states are using to try to report Covid-19 data almost in real time, rather than deaths reported more slowly through death certificates. These front-line numbers are the ones that power state control panels and data trackers, like Johns Hopkins’.
Ohio in February announced more than 4,000 additional deaths while reconciling its data, and Indiana added about 1,500. Minor revisions have also recently come from Virginia, Minnesota and Rhode Island. On Thursday, West Virginia officials said medical providers did not properly report 168 deaths to the state’s public health department.
With cases and deaths falling across the country, Dr. Fauci warned on Sunday that the US could experience another increase in Covid-19 as Europe if it lifted the restrictions too soon and asked former President Donald Trump to urge his supporters to get vaccinated.
The US administered more than 109 million doses of vaccine as of Monday morning, with 14.8% of the adult population now fully vaccinated against Covid-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Dr. Fauci, director of the United States National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program that if new Covid-19 infections stabilize at around 60,000 a day, there is a risk of another increase.
“This is what we really want to avoid, because we are in the right direction,” he said. “That is why I am so anxious when I hear about completely withdrawing from public health measures, like saying, ‘No more masks, nothing like that’. “
Overall, there were more than 29.43 million cases of Covid-19 reported in the United States, and more than 534,000 people died, according to data from Johns Hopkins. Worldwide, about 120 million cases have been reported and more than 2.65 million people have died.