People's CDC COVID-19 Weather Report

The Weather

As of April 20, about 40% of reporting US counties are experiencing substantial or higher COVID transmission based on available data. As of April 1, Iowa (shown in gray) no longer reports COVID data to the CDC.

Map and table show COVID transmission levels by US county as of April 20, 2023 in four colored categories. These categories show the number of cases per 100,000 population and percent positivity in the past 7 days. High (red) is at or above 100 or 10 percent. Substantial (orange) is 50-99 or 8-9.9 percent. Moderate (yellow) is 10-49 or 5-7.9 percent. Low (blue) is less than 10 or 5 percent. The US shows mixed colors, with areas of yellow predominating on the west coast and Northeast. Iowa is gray due to no data recording. Text in bottom right: 39.61 percent of US counties are experiencing substantial or higher transmission. Transmission Level table shows 23.84 percent (768 counties) have high transmission, 15.77 percent (508 counties) have substantial transmission, 44.1 percent (1421 counties) have moderate transmission, and 13.22 percent (426 counties) have low transmission. A purple footer reads “People’s CDC” to the left and “CDC Transmission Levels” to the right.

WINS

People are continuing to fight to protect each other from the harms of COVID! This week, we’re highlighting those fighting to #KeepMasksInHealthcare!

A recent commentary published in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology supports expanding the concept of “universal precautions” to include universal masking in healthcare settings. We are grateful to add another reference to the already strong scientific support for masking in healthcare settings.

In Massachusetts, @MAHealthEquity organized a phonebank last week to call legislators to demand preserved protections in healthcare.

Covid Safe Campus and Covid Safe Maryland organized an in-person action and then a phone and email banking event to push Johns Hopkins to keep masks in healthcare. Check out this thread of their masked in-person action.

Volunteers with People’s CDC wrote and organized a letter campaign to help everyone across the country get in contact with healthcare system leadership to demand they preserve or reinstate mask mandates in healthcare settings.

As always, follow @mandatemasksus to keep up on all sorts of mask-related advocacy no matter where in the country you are!

Wastewater Monitoring

National wastewater data continues to show a plateau to slight decline in the Northeast, Midwest, and Southern regions. The West region shows a slight increase.

Title reads “Wastewater: Effective SARS-CoV-2 virus concentration (copies / mL of sewage). Line graph shows the levels of COVID detected in wastewater by US region, each region with a different color trend line. The y-axis shows numbers between 0 and 2,000 for copies per mL of sewage and the x-axis shows time labels between November 2022 and April 2023. A legend map of the US in the bottom left shows the West region as green, South as pink, Midwest as purple, and Northeast as orange. Virus concentrations show a plateau or slight decrease since March 2023 for three regions except the West, which shows a slight increase since April 2023. The bottom right lists values for April 19, 2023: Northeast is 173 copies/mL, Midwest is 216 copies/mL, South is 203 copies/mL, and West is 357 copies/mL. Source text in center reads “Wastewater data from Biobot Analytics” — Source: https://biobot.io/data/

Some regions of the country can get an even closer view of wastewater levels Sars-Cov2 and other dangerous pathogens in their area using https://data.wastewaterscan.org/

Forecasts

Though hospitalizations and deaths continue to trend downward, we expect that as masks are removed in healthcare, we will start to see increases again. In Santa Rosa, California, one hospital is reinstating its mask mandate after a COVID outbreak occurred only a few weeks after it was lifted.

Get involved in the fight to protect masks in healthcare: https://peoplescdc.substack.com/p/act-now-for-masks-in-healthcare

Long COVID

More than 16 million Americans suffer from Long COVID, yet its burden has been made to be largely invisible, even sometimes to those that suffer its impacts. Despite its burden, we continue to have almost no information about its treatments thanks, in part, to blunders at the NIH.

The only way to avoid Long COVID is to avoid COVID infection altogether.

Protect yourself, whatever the weather

So many layers of protection are threatened by the Biden Administration’s looming end to the Public Health Emergency. One of these layers is rapid tests, which millions rely upon to gather safely or to limit household spread. Please check out and sign this letter to demand continued access to Free Rapid Tests for All.

Notes: 1) The numbers in this report were current as of 4/21/23. Today’s numbers may be slightly different from the data here. 2) Check out the links throughout & see our website for more – https://bej.gbh.mybluehost.me