January 30 COVID-19 Test Results and Vaccinations

The reason I’m posting COVID data is this matters for the economy. From the FOMC statement this week:

The path of the economy will depend significantly on the course of the virus, including progress on vaccinations.

It appears the 7-day average cases has peaked. Stay safe! I’m looking forward to not posting this data soon.

Note: Bloomberg has great data on vaccinations.

“Vaccinations in the U.S. began Dec. 14 with health-care workers, and so far 30.5 million shots have been given, according to a state-by-state tally by Bloomberg and data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the last week, an average of 1.35 million doses per day were administered.”

Also check out the graphs at COVID-19 Vaccine Projections The site has several interactive graphs related to US COVID vaccinations including a breakdown of how many have had one shot, and how many have had both shots.

The US is now averaging close to 2 million tests per day. Based on the experience of other countries, for adequate test-and-trace (and isolation) to reduce infections, the percent positive needs to be under 5% (probably close to 1%), so the US has far too many daily cases – and percent positive – to do effective test-and-trace.

There were 2,088,902 test results reported over the last 24 hours.

There were 146,657 positive tests.

Over 93,000 US deaths have been reported so far in January, surpassing December as the deadliest month. See the graph on US Daily Deaths here.

COVID-19 Tests per Day and Percent PositiveClick on graph for larger image.

This data is from the COVID Tracking Project.

The percent positive over the last 24 hours was 7.0% (red line is 7 day average).  The percent positive is calculated by dividing positive results by total tests (including pending).

And check out COVID Act Now to see how each state is doing. (updated link to new site)

COVID-19 Positive Tests per DayThe second graph shows the 7 day average of positive tests reported and daily hospitalizations.

It seems likely cases and hospitalizations have peaked, but are declining from a very high level.