While COVID-19 cases continue to soar across the U.S., the CDC reported in its most recent weekly surveillance summary that deaths continue to decline.
Based on death certificate data available on July 9, 5.5 percent of all deaths occurring during the week ending July 4 were due to pneumonia, influenza or COVID-19. This is the eleventh consecutive week of a declining percentage of deaths due to these three causes.
In fact, this death percentage is now below the level that determines if an outbreak is an epidemic, but the CDC warns the percentage could change as more death certificates from recent weeks are processed.
The CDC has observed that three regions in the country are seeing a higher percentage of outpatient clinic visits for COVID-like illness and higher percentage of tests revealing positive results: the southeast, the south-central U.S., and the southwest and west coast.
