Covid-19 exposure risk: 1/6/2022
The number of reported daily cases has never been higher since the start of the pandemic for Nevada and Utah. Arizona is rapidly approaching record-breaking numbers of daily cases.
All but two counties in our synod continue to have extremely high levels of risk for unvaccinated people.
State of the virus
With the Omicron variant spreading rapidly, the country is averaging more than 500,000 new cases a day, far more than at any previous point in the pandemic. Omicron appears to cause less severe illness than prior forms of the virus, but has contributed to upticks in hospitalizations.
Reports of new infections are rising steeply almost everywhere in the country. Case rates are highest in Northeastern states, including New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island.
Hospitalizations have increased more than 50 percent over the last two weeks, a steep incline but so far a much lower rate of increase than cases. More than 100,000 coronavirus patients are hospitalized nationwide. Deaths, which are a lagging indicator of virus activity, have not yet increased.
With many people testing themselves on at-home tests, and other infections going undetected, reported cases are an undercount of actual infections, but indicate how the virus is spreading. Case trends help officials, businesses and residents assess risk and make decisions. Hospitalizations show strain on health care systems and can indicate the severity of recent infections.
Reports of new cases are now increasing in places that largely avoided the first weeks of the Omicron surge, including Wyoming and Oregon.
The New York Times published county-specific guidance for common activities to help you lower your personal risk of getting Covid-19 and to help you protect your community. This advice was developed with public health experts at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Resolve to Save Lives, an initiative of Vital Strategies.
“Providing transparent, real time information about what people’s risks are is empowering,” said Dr. Tom Frieden, who is a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the president and C.E.O. of Resolve to Save Lives. “You want to know how hard it’s raining Covid.”