New cases of COVID-19 in the United States drop for fifth consecutive week

(Reuters) – The United States last week reported a 23% drop in new COVID-19 cases and a 16% drop in the number of people hospitalized with the virus, both numbers falling for a fifth straight week.

Progress against the virus, however, is threatened by several new variants, experts said, adding that face masks and social distancing measures are still badly needed.

About 4% of cases in the country are linked to a more contagious variant first detected in the UK, according to Dr Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“We have projections that this could be the dominant strain by the end of March,” she told CBS “Face the Nation” on Sunday.

The country recorded more than 639,000 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ended February 14, according to a Reuters analysis of state and county reports. Compared to the previous week, new cases increased in only three out of 50 states: Alaska, Nebraska and South Dakota.

(Open tmsnrt.rs/2WTOZDR in an external browser to see a state-by-state graph.)

Deaths fell for a second week in a row, down 1.8% last week to 21,787. Excluding a backlog of deaths reported by Ohio, deaths fell 15% last week. In total, nearly 486,000 people have died from the virus in the United States, or one in 673 people.

The average number of COVID-19 patients in U.S. hospitals fell to 74,000 last week, the lowest since mid-November, according to a Reuters analysis of data from the COVID Tracking Project run by volunteers.

Nationally, 5.7% of COVID-19 tests returned positive for the virus, the lowest level since the week ended October 25, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project.

(Graphic: global COVID-19 tracker – here)