Coronavirus infections decline across country as vaccinations increase

New cases of the coronavirus have continued to decline sharply over the past week – progress that could help the United States emerge from the pandemic faster and more safely, if sustained.

The big picture: Containing the spread of the virus is key to saving lives and reopening schools and businesses. And the tools to achieve it – masks, social distancing, and vaccines – are also the most effective weapons against the most contagious variants that could threaten the progress of the United States.

In numbers: An average of 108,000 Americans have been diagnosed with COVID-19 infections every day over the past week.

• This is a drop of 24% from the previous week.
• Hospitalizations also fell last week, by about 8%, and deaths were down 3%. The virus still kills an average of about 3,000 Americans per day.

Between the lines: 108,000 new cases and 3,000 deaths per day is still a very bad situation and should not be considered a lasting level of infection.

• But after the horrific winter epidemic the United States experienced, the only way to have a small number of cases is to continue to decline week after week. And it does happen.
• Nationally, the average daily cases have declined to double digits for four straight weeks. Cumulatively, they have fallen by about 55% during this period.
• It’s been three weeks since even a single state reported an increase in average daily infections.

It is real progress.

And after: Experts have warned that new, more contagious variants of COVID-19 are gaining ground in the United States and will likely soon become the dominant strain here. This means that each infected person is more likely to spread the virus.

• The best way to avoid an increase in the number of cases linked to these variants is to increase vaccinations, wear masks and social distances – including double masks if necessary – and continue to reduce the number of infected people.

Each week, Axios tracks the progress of new infections in each state. We use a seven-day average to minimize the effects of daily discrepancies in state reports.