During a public address on March 30, President Joe Biden warned that the trajectory of the pandemic was shifting just as federal funding for COVID treatments and vaccines was beginning to run out, saying: “Cases are ticking up as we thought they might.” The President cautioned the public that even though the virus didn’t pose the same threat it did when it first appeared, it was still too soon to stop playing defense. “Because of the strategy we executed over the past year on vaccinations, testing, treatments, and more, we’re now in a new moment in this pandemic. It does not mean that COVID-19 is over. It means that COVID-19 no longer controls our lives,” Biden warned. News of the funding shortage comes a week after the highly transmissible BA.2 subvariant was declared the dominant strain of the virus in the U.S. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows the viral offshoot is now responsible for 72 percent of genetically sequenced COVID-19 infections stateside. Read on to see which states have experienced COVID surges of more than 30 percent over the past week as of April 5, according to data from The Washington Post. RELATED: The Next COVID Wave Will Hit These U.S. States First, Experts Warn.
New cases in the last seven days: 15 cases per 100,000 people Percent increase in the last seven days: 43 percent
The recent COVID-19 spike in New Jersey has set the average daily cases in the state up 10 percent from where they were a month ago. But data also shows that hospitalizations have dropped dramatically from the 6,089 reported at the height of the Omicron surge on Jan. 10 to 379 on April 4.
New cases in the last seven days: 11 cases per 100,000 people Percent increase in the last seven days: 51 percent
Just over a week after it became the last state in the nation to drop indoor masking requirements, Hawaii is seeing cases begin to creep back up. Fortunately, hospitalizations and deaths from COVID have decreased 31 and 39 percent over the past two weeks, respectively, as of April 4, according to data from The New York Times.
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New cases in the last seven days: 4 cases per 100,000 people Percent increase in the last seven days: 53 percent
The most recently available data shows the positive COVID test rate in South Carolina was 1.9 percent as of March 31, according to COVID Act Now. Hospitalizations in the state have also dropped by 25 percent, according to data from The Post.
New cases in the last seven days: 5 cases per 100,000 people Percent increase in the last seven days: 60 percent
The Mississippi State Department of Health reported 443 new COVID-19 cases from over the weekend on April 4. To date, the state has seen a total of 795,164 cases and 12,402 deaths from the virus. RELATED: Dr. Fauci Just Warned All Americans “Need to Be Prepared” for This.
New cases in the last seven days: 7 cases per 100,000 people Percent increase in the last seven days: 113 percent
The recent spike in reported COVID cases in Utah comes as wastewater testing in the state has also shown an increase in the virus. “We’re out of winter now. We’re into spring. There’s more population movement. There’s more people going out and traveling,” Nathan LaCross, PhD, the wastewater surveillance program manager with the Utah Department of Health, told local Salt Lake City NBC affiliate KSL-TV. “COVID isn’t gone. It’s still there. So, my suspicion is that we’re just seeing increased transmission due to increased population movement and contact.”
New cases in the last seven days: 4 cases per 100,000 people Percent increase in the last seven days: 121 percent
Even as cases more than doubled in Nebraska over the past week, the number of hospitalizations from the virus in the state has dropped. Last week’s daily average of 85 patients showed a 23 percent decrease compared to the previous week’s average, the Omaha World-Herald reports.ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb
New cases in the last seven days: 20 cases per 100,000 people Percent increase in the last seven days: 122 percent
The latest spike in Arizona comes less than one week after Gov. Doug Ducey announced the end of the state’s COVID Declaration of Emergency on March 30. It currently ranks third behind Alaska and Vermont for most new cases per capita in the U.S. over the past seven days, according to data from The Post. Cases appear to be up in Georgia, but according to the state’s health department, this has to do with a backlog of previously unreported COVID tests finally being processed from a large lab. When adjusting for the flood of newly reported cases, numbers appear to be consistent with last week’s, The Cobb County Courrier reports. RELATED: I’m Boosted and Got Omicron—This Was My Worst Symptom by Far.