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No market commentary in today’s First Word due to technical difficulties. We apologize for any inconvenience.
POINT 1: Daily COVID-19 cases 160,293, down -80,106 vs 7D ago…
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Current Trends — COVID-19 cases:
– Daily cases 160,293 vs 240,399 7D ago, down -80,106
– 7D positivity rate 13.4% vs 19.9% 7D ago
– Hospitalized patients 90,375, down -22% vs 7D ago
– Daily deaths 2,533, down -0.8% vs 7D ago
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The latest COVID-19 daily cases came in at 160,293, down -80,106 vs. 7D ago. The 7D delta in daily cases has been negative over the past 3 week. Recently, we have seen the 7D delta edged up slightly, but this is primarily because daily cases have dropped so much. In fact, in term of 7D average, the daily cases in the US has fallen 74% from the peak in early January. As shown in the updated state trend tracker below, the daily cases are in retreat in all US states. 10 states — MD, NJ, DC, NY, RI, CT, MA, WI, DE, and OH — have seen daily cases fall ~90% from their peaks.
Besides daily cases, daily hospitalizations have also plunged about 40% from its peak. Similarly, the positivity rates dropped dramatically over the past few weeks and as we noted previously, the positivity rate (7D avg) could fall below 10% next week. The daily mortality is the exception. According to prior waves, there is normally a 2-3 week lag between the peak of daily cases and the peak of daily deaths. Since the decline in daily cases has been nearly a month long, it is surprising to see daily deaths still rise. We do not know the reason why the death trend acts differently in the Omicron wave compared to prior waves. But this is definitely worth watching.
7D delta in daily cases has been negative in 21 of past 22 days…
The 7D delta in daily cases remains in the negative regime and the overall trend has been stable. This reflected the steady decline in daily cases. Over the past few days, the 7D delta has shrank slightly, but this is primarily because the daily cases have fallen so much.
The COVID-19 cases are falling in all US states…
*** We’ve split the “Parabolic Case Tracker” into 2 tables: one where cases are falling (or about to fall), and the other where cases are rising
In these tables, we’ve included the vaccine penetration, case peak information, and the current case trend for 50 US states + DC. The table for states where cases are declining is sorted by case % off of their recent peak, while the table for states where cases are rising is sorted by the current daily cases to pre-surge daily cases multiple.
– The states with higher ranks are the states that have seen a more significant decline / rise in daily cases
– We also calculated the number of days during the recent case surge
– The US as a whole, UK, and Israel are also shown at the top as a reference
Daily deaths are still rising, while positivity rates and hospitalization are falling now…
Below we show the aggregate number of patients hospitalized due to COVID, daily mortality associated with COVID, and the daily positivity rate for COVID
-Net hospitalization started to roll over. And more importantly, the daily mortality did not follow the same pattern as hospitalization, which shows Omicron is less deadly compared to other variants (at least so far).
– Positivity rate finally started to fall after plateauing for two weeks. It also confirms the recent decline in daily cases.
POINT 2: VACCINE: vaccination pace has slowed recently… Still more than half of eligible people have not received their booster shots…
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Current Trends — Vaccinations:
– avg 0.6 million this past week vs 0.7 million last week
– overall, 27.7% received booster doses, 64.1% fully vaccinated, 75.5% 1-dose+ received
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Vaccination frontier update –> all states now near or above 80% combined penetration (vaccines + infections)
*** We’ve updated the total detected infections multiplier from 4.0x to 2.5x. The CDC changed the estimate multiplier because testing has become much better and more prevalent.
Below we sorted the states by the combined penetration (vaccinations + infections). The assumption is that a state with higher combined penetration is likely to be closer to herd immunity, and therefore, less likely to see a parabolic surge in daily cases and deaths. Please note that this “combined penetration” metric can be over 100%, as infected people could also be vaccinated (actually recommended by CDC).
– Currently, all states are near or above 90% combined penetration
– Given the 2.5x multiplier, all states besides MS, WA, OR, TX, ID, MI, MO, and GA are now above 100% combined penetration (vaccines + infections). Again, this metric can be over 100%, as infected people could also be vaccinated. But 100% combined penetration does not mean that the entire population within each state is either infected or vaccinated
There were a total of 700,312 doses administered, as reported on Thursday. The vaccination pace has slowed from the recent peak of 2 million doses per day in mid-December to ~600,000 recently. The improving COVID case trend across the nation may have influenced people’s desire and sense of urgency to get the booster doses. That said, as more and more states lift their COVID-19 restrictions, we believe vaccination remains a key to support us to smoothly transition back to “Normal”. Therefore, the daily number of vaccines administered is still one of the most important metrics to watch.
This is the state by state data below, showing information for individuals with one dose, two doses, and booster dose.
In total, 545 million vaccine doses have been administered across the country. Specifically, 250 million Americans (75% of US population) have received at least 1 dose of the vaccine. 212 million Americans (64% of US population) are fully vaccinated. And 92 million Americans (28% of US population) received their booster shot.
POINT 3: Tracking the seasonality of COVID-19
***We’ve updated the seasonality tracker to show figures from the last 9 months, from this calendar day, in each of the last two years***
As evident by trends in 2020 and 2021, seasonality appears to play an important role in the daily cases, hospitalization, and deaths trends. Therefore, we think there might be a strong argument that COVID-19 is poised to become a seasonal virus.
The possible explanations for the seasonality we observed are:
– Outdoor Temperature: increasing indoor activities in the South vs increasing outdoor activities in the northeast during the Summer
– “Air Conditioning” Season: similar to “outdoor temperature”, more “AC” usage might facilitate the spread of the virus indoors
– Opposite effects hold true in the winter
CASES
It seems as if the main factor contributing to current case trends right now is outdoor temperature. During the Summer, outdoor activities are generally increased in the northern states as the weather becomes nicer. In southern states, on the other hand, it becomes too hot and indoor activities are increased. As such, northern state cases didn’t spike much during Summer 2020 while southern state cases did. Currently, northern state cases are showing a slight spike, especially when compared to Summer 2020. This could be attributed to the introduction of the more transmissible Delta variant and the lifting of restrictions combined with pent up demand for indoor activities.
HOSPITALIZATION
Current hospitalizations appear to be similar or less than Summer 2020 rates in most states. This is likely due to increased vaccination rates and the vaccine’s ability to reduce the severity of the virus.
DEATHS
Current death rates appear to be scattered compared to 2020 rates. This is likely due to varying vaccination rates in each state. States with higher vaccination rates seem to have lower death rates given the vaccine’s ability to reduce the severity of the virus; states with lower vaccination rates seem to have higher death rates.
