Hospitals are saying the third wave of coronavirus that brought daily record-setting cases, hospitalizations and deaths is over.
Despite an average of 1,700 Americans dying every day from COVID-19, the portion of those coming from hospitals has decrease dover the last two months.
Newly released data from the Department of Health and Human Services shows fewer hospitals are reporting full intensive care units (ICUs).
What’s more, the number of facilities that say more than half their patients are infected with the virus, known as SARS-CoV-2, has fallen by more than 94 percent.
It comes as overall COVID-10 hospitalizations are around 40,000, the lowest figures seen since early October.
Hospitals in every region have reported a decline in COVID-19 hospitalizations from 56% in the Northeast (far left) to 70% in the West (second from left) to 67% in the South (second from right) to 78% in the West (far right) since peaks in January
A USA Today analysis found 324 hospitals reported their ICUs were at capacity in early January, which fell to 138 by early March
‘Overall we are seeing the numbers of COVID patients in our hospitals at the lowest levels in more than a year,’ Bart Buxton, the CEO of McLaren Health Care in Michigan, told USA Today in an email.
‘We currently have fewer than 80 patients total in our 15 hospitals with SARS-COV-2 primary diagnosis and very few of those patients are in our ICUs.’
The HHS data shows that every region of the United States has seen a drop in hospitalizations, a DailyMail.com analysis found.
The Northeast has seen a decrease in patients hospitalized of about 56 percent and the Midwest about 70 percent over the same time period.
Even the South and the West – both of which were hit significantly hard by the post-holiday-surge – have seen drops.
In the South, the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients has fallen by two-thirds and, in the West, the figure has fallen by more than three-quarters.
Two months ago, 193 hospitals said more than half of their patients had been infected with coronavirus, which has decreased to just 10
A USA Today analysis also revealed that 35 hospitals said their ICUs were filled with just COVID-19 patients around New Year’s, which has fallen to four hospitals. Pictured: Patty Trejo talks to her husband Joseph at his bedside at St Jude Medical Center in Fullerton, California, February 2021
An analysis of the HHS data from USA Today also found that the fewer hospitals in every region are reporting a large share in COVID-19 patients.
In early January, 193 hospitals said more than half of their patients had been infected with the coronavirus.
As of early March, the number has fallen to just 10, USA Today found.
Another analysis from the newspaper found that the number of hospitals that say their ICUS are full has declined by 50 percent.
During the week of January 8 to January 14, a total of 324 hospitals reported their ICUs were at capacity. By the week of February 26 to March 4, that figure fell to 138.
According to USA Today, the number of hospitals that said their ICUs were solely filled with COVID-19 patients from 35 around New Year’s to around four in the present.
‘These numbers are very encouraging,’ Dr Karen Joynt Maddox, a professor at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, Missouri, told USA Today.
‘We have a long way to go, but things are certainly heading in the right direction. And keeping COVID patients out of ICU beds is good in terms of COVID, but it’s also good in terms of so many other things – having capacity to take care of patients who need cancer treatment, or patients who need heart surgery, or patients who need trauma care.’
Health experts have long stated that the best way to keep driving down COVID-19 hospitalizations is to keep ramping up vaccination efforts.
As of Tuesday, more than 60 million Americans – 18.1 percent of the population – has received one dose and 31.4 million – 9.5 percent – has received both doses.
An average of about two million people in the U.S. are being vaccinated every day.
