California, which once updated its cumulative numbers of cases and deaths every day, now does so only twice a week. In Florida, case and death data are only released once every two weeks. Just last week, many more public testing sites were closed in Alaska, Colorado and Rhode Island. Iowa will close several sites by the end of next week. Recent virus numbers have been skewed around holidays like Memorial Day and Juneteenth, when many states often pause reporting and then restart tracking, a trend that is sure to continue this week, after 4th of July holiday weekend. “Monitoring the daily number of tests is less instructive than it used to be,” said Dr. Adalja, citing the close relationship between cases and hospitalizations in the past. Today’s numbers shouldn’t be treated like checking a daily score or a sports team’s scores, he added. “I think testing has a different role,” he said. “Even when the tests were at a different point, it was always an understatement.” For a local look at how the virus is evolving, Dr. Adjala said he has ended up relying on hospitalizations as a percentage of his capacity. It also checks the CDC’s Community Levels Tracker, which includes new hospital admissions and how many beds are being used. He urges a shift in focus to serious diseases, rather than tracking the “rise and fall of cases”. Hospital admissions rose modestly throughout June, although they remain at low levels. Just over 33,000 people are hospitalized in US hospitals with the coronavirus per day on average, and fewer than 4,000 are in intensive care. Reports of new deaths remain below 400 per day, compared to the country’s daily peak of more than 3,300 deaths in January 2021. Lisa Waananen, Christine Chung and Alain Delaquérière contributed to the report.
