Hospitalization Flare-Ups Are Reminders That Pandemic Isn’t Over

(Bloomberg) -- Covid-19 hospitalizations are rising in Idaho and Alaska, the latest signs that the U.S. remains susceptible to bursts of infection, even as national trends improve and the vaccine rollout accelerates.

In Idaho, the number of people hospitalized with the virus rose 14% from a week earlier, to 162 on Sunday. The total was up 26% in Alaska to 43, according to Covid Tracking Project data.

The moves come from low starting points and may not signal a long-term trend. But they show that outbreaks are likely to continue, fueled by easy-spreading variants and hesitancy among some Americans to get vaccinated.

Still, the future flare-ups will probably be much less deadly thanks to the inoculation campaign.

There will also be many false alarms: The seven-day average of new cases is rising in more than half of U.S. states, where it had been dropping for weeks. But in many of those cases, the move appears attributable to technical factors. (Testing has recently recovered from a lull after February's winter weather. And in most instances, the rise in cases doesn't correspond to increasing positivity rates or hospitalizations.)

The seven-day average daily pace of shots rose to a record 1.74 million on Sunday, according to the Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker.

Read more: The latest inoculation numbers are on the Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker

The U.S. added 54,288 new Covid-19 cases on Sunday, bringing the seven-day average to 67,114, up 4.2% from 64,398 a week earlier, according to Covid Tracking Project data. The seven-day average of new tests rose 15% in the period.

Johns Hopkins University data show there have been more than 513,000 deaths cumulatively.

According to Covid Tracking Project data:

• New York has the most people currently hospitalized with the virus.
• The Empire State also has the most cases per capita in the past seven days.

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