The number of new COVID-19 cases in Texas and the U.S. are falling precipitously, although a leading health official cautioned last weekend that the pandemic remains far from under control.
COVID-19 hospitalizations during the first half of February have dropped by almost half since peaking in January, with total hospitalizations dropping below 70,000 for the first time since mid-November, Houston-area blogger Bill King said in a recent column.
If that trend continues "and if hospitalizations continue to fall at the current rate, they will be below the July peak later this week," King said in the Feb. 14 blog post.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Director Rochelle Walensky
| cdc.gov/
"What is even more remarkable is that the rate of the decline is accelerating," King added. "Last week averaged almost 3% per day."
Nationally, roughly 80% of COVID-19 fatalities occurred in ages 65 and older, the Centers for Disease Control reports.
The number of newly reported cases in Texas also are dropping, although they remain high. Texas had 2,981 new confirmed cases, including 445 new probable cases as of Monday, according to the latest data available from the Texas Department of State Health Services. That day saw 66 new COVID-19 deaths in the state and brought the confirmed total of cases in Texas to more than 2.2 million.
Meanwhile, the Texas Health and Human Services reports that more than 6 million doses have been allocated, significantly more than the approximately 4.7 million doses that have been shipped. More than 2.9 million people in the state have received at least the first dose of the two-shot vaccine and more than 1.2 million have been fully vaccinated.
NPR reports that the country is administering 1.8 million vaccines daily.
Although the falling number of new reported cases is good news, now is not the time to let up, said CDC and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky during a spot on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday. The latest figures, which include 1,500 to 3,500 more coronavirus deaths each day, are far more than twice the figures recorded in the U.S. last summer, Walensky said during the news program.
"It's encouraging to see these trends coming down, but they're coming down from an extraordinarily high place," she said. "And, as I said earlier, if we want to get our children back to school - and I believe we all do - it all depends on how much community spread is out there. We need to all take responsibility to decrease that community spread, including mask wearing, so that we can get our kids and our society back."
New coronavirus variants in other countries now are showing up in the U.S. and that's likely to lead to more COVID cases and deaths.
"We can't let our guard down," Walensky said. "We have to continue wearing masks. We have to continue with our current mitigation measures. And we have to continue getting vaccinated as soon as that vaccine is available to us."
More than 27.6 million COVID-19 cases have been reported in the U.S. and more than 484,000 Americans have died from the virus, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
About 80% of all COVID deaths in the U.S. have been in people 65 and older with deaths in the 55 and older age group making up about 93% of all U.S. COVID deaths, according to CDC reports.
