Category: Corona Virus

While fears may be growing that another COVID-19 surge will be upon us in the coming months, there is some indication that the future is now.

Theres a reason data show that, while the positivity rate of COVID tests has spiked to five-month highs, and hospitalizations have steadily climbed to four-month highs, new daily COVID cases have held steady for the past couple of months.

The new cases are being undercounted because results of widely available at-home tests arent being reported for government tabulation. The Fourth of July holiday has also caused reporting delays. And many states have stopped providing daily updates, as the New York Times reported.

Theres no question in my mind that were missing a vast majority of infections right now, White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Ashish Jha said on NBCs Nightly News with Lester Holt on Thursday. The truth is, there are probably several hundred thousand, four or five hundred thousand, infections today happening across the country.

That would put the daily case count at levels seen during the January surge of the omicron variant. The current outbreak is now mostly the result of the fast-spreading BA.5 subvariant, named the dominant strain this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Its the rapid spread of new variants that keep boosting new case counts, even in people who may have previously believed they had become immune.

We are seeing a lot of reinfections within months of prior infections. Its a reminder that an infection does not give you lifelong immunity, Jha said. Its also a reminder that were seeing rapid evolution of a virus thats trying to escape that prior-infection immunity.

Its no wonder the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said last week that COVID-19 vaccine makers need to update their boosters to target subvariants.

I remain optimistic that however the virus evolves, the new vaccines will provide a greater degree of protection, certainly [greater] than the vaccines we have right now, Jha said.

Meanwhile, a New York Times tracker showed that the seven-day average of new cases was 108,414 on Friday, up just 3% from two weeks ago. The daily average has remained within a relatively narrow range since mid-May.

At the same time, the test positivity rate reached 18%, having more than doubled in two months. The positivity rate reached its highest level since Feb. 1, when the daily average of new cases was above 425,782.

And the daily average for hospitalizations has grown steadily over the past three months to 36,300 on Friday, which is 17% more than two weeks ago and the most since March 6.

The number of hospitalized patients in intensive-care units has increased 17% in two weeks to 4,081, the most since mid-March, the latest New York Times data show.

If there is a silver lining, its that the daily average for deaths fell 8% from two weeks ago to 322, but that has been relatively steady since late April.

The number of Americans who have been fully vaccinated ticked up to 222.46 million, or 67% of the total population, according to the latest data from the CDC. And the number of people who have received a first booster shot rose to 106.62 million, or 47.9% of those fully vaccinated.

Daily updates: Read MarketWatchs Coronavirus Update column

Another growing COVID concern, besides the latest outbreak, are the negative effects of what is known as long COVID, as The Wall Street Journal reports. That refers to COVID symptoms, such as shortness of breath, brain fog and fatigue, that last months, and even longer, after an infection.

On a global basis, the total number of COVID cases recorded rose to 554.61 million, while deaths grew to 6,349,857, according to data provided by Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. leads the way by far, with a total of 88.55 million cases and 1,020,816 total deaths.

Read more here:

'Several hundred thousand' new COVID cases a day aren't being reported as hospitalizations keep climbing - MarketWatch

Long before COVID-19 transformed daily life, scientists were aware of the possibility that a coronavirus could make the leap from an animal species to the human population.

How different the last few years might have been had a vaccine capable of blocking the SARS-CoV-2 virus been administered to workers at the Huanan Market in Wuhan, China where, scientists suspect, a raccoon dog infected a vendor and set off a pandemic that has killed more than 6.3 million people around the globe.

A new type of vaccine developed at Caltech aims to ward off novel coronaviruses even before health officials are aware that they exist. When tested in mice and monkeys, it trained the animals immune systems to recognize eight viruses at once and induced immunity to viruses they had never encountered.

The findings, published Tuesday in the journal Science, could lead to a powerful tool against a virus that mutates too quickly to be contained with current vaccines. An international vaccine foundation has pledged $30 million to begin clinical trials of the experimental vaccine in humans.

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Weve had three pandemics or epidemics in the past 20 years: first SARS, then MERS, then SARS-CoV-2, said Caltech biochemist Pamela Bjorkman, who led the new work. More outbreaks sparked by spillover events are inevitable, she said, and we want to protect now against the future spillover.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Bidens chief advisor on the COVID-19 pandemic, praised the research as a major conceptual step toward a pan-coronavirus vaccine.

Its a very, very important proof of concept, he said, noting that it remains to be seen whether it works as well in humans as it has in lab animals. Thats why you do the experiment.

The new vaccine doesnt block all coronaviruses, an ambitious goal not yet within sciences grasp. Instead, it focuses on the group known as betacoronaviruses, which includes those that cause COVID-19, severe acute respiratory syndrome and Middle East respiratory syndrome, among other diseases.

Rather than using a piece of inactivated virus or a lab-created molecule designed to mimic one found in nature, the Caltech researchers created a microscopic speck of matter that they could adorn as they pleased. Their nanoparticle is composed of proteins with sticky bits on their surfaces, to which researchers can attach even tinier bits of viruses.

The team tested three versions of the nanoparticle. One was covered with pieces of SARS-CoV-2. A mosaic version had SARS-CoV-2 plus samples of seven other coronaviruses, including one that causes MERS and other strains found in bats and pangolins. The last one was bare, to serve as a control.

When looking for pieces of viruses to clip and attach, the team zeroed in on a section of the spike protein called the receptor binding domain, or RBD. This is the part thats typically targeted by the immune systems neutralizing antibodies, whether theyve been generated in response to a vaccine or a previous infection.

Given that the RBDs of betacoronaviruses share many characteristics, the researchers hoped that the mosaic version would prompt the immune system to focus on parts common to all eight viruses. They further theorized that if these parts were shared across most or all betacoronaviruses, the vaccine would trigger an immune response when presented with any member of the viral group even those that werent among the samples.

They were right.

As they designed their mosaic nanoparticle, they deliberately left out SARS-CoV, the virus responsible for severe acute respiratory syndrome. If the vaccine worked as intended, animals vaccinated with the mosaic nanoparticle, then exposed to SARS-CoV, would mount an immune response.

They did. In fact, the vaccinated mice and monkeys had little to no detectable virus in their systems despite attempts to infect them with either SARS-CoV or SARS-CoV-2.

Were very excited about that, Bjorkman said.

That wasnt the case with the animals injected with the bare nanoparticle they werent able to fight off any viruses and died. The animals that received the vaccine with pieces of SARS-CoV-2 only were protected against that virus but had no protection against any other coronavirus, and most of them died as well.

If the mosaic vaccine works as well in humans as it did in animals, it could offer protection against the betacoronaviruses we know about, as well as related ones that have yet to make the leap to humans.

That prospect is promising but far from certain.

The next step is a Phase 1 clinical trial in humans, the first hurdle to cross when bringing a new drug or vaccine to market in the U.S. That will take place at Oxford University, home to Bjorkmans collaborators on the project, and will likely take at least a year.

The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations said Tuesday that it will foot the bill for the initial trial, with the goal of establishing evidence that the vaccine is safe in humans.

Its certainly encouraging, said Dr. Paul Offit, a virologist and immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania. But these are animal model studies, and as is well known among scientists, mice lie and monkeys exaggerate.

Its hard to make universal vaccines work, Offit added. Its not for want of money. Its not for want of desire or effort. Its just a very hard thing to do.

This isnt the only team in the U.S. exploring nanoparticle vaccines for coronaviruses. Researchers at Duke University and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research are investigating them as well.

These general approaches all use the receptor binding domain to elicit strong antibody responses that can neutralize the virus, so they all have some promise, said Dr. Stanley Perlman, a virologist and immunologist at the University of Iowa who specializes in betacoronaviruses.

This is a good approach based on what we know, he said, and one has to hope that itll be useful for viruses that we havent identified yet.

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Vaccine protects against COVID virus family members - Los Angeles Times

After recent declines in COVID cases, several subvariants of omicron are making significant gains in the United States, with some studies indicating that they could potentially do a better job of evading existing vaccines and immunity.

According to the latest updates from the CDC, the BA.5 lineage of the omicron variant is now the most prevalent strain of the virus in the United States, responsible for nearly 54% of cases.

The BA.4 lineage is also gaining ground, responsible for 16.5% of cases, officials say.

With those case trends, many individuals are curious about what symptoms typically appear first with a COVID infection, and how quickly those symptoms can appear.

According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, early symptoms of COVID-19 typically include fatigue, headache, sore throat or a fever.

Some patients also experience a loss of taste or smell as an early or their first symptom, according to experts.

Experts do caution patients that the severity, or even the type, of initial symptoms can vary widely by the person.

The CDC says that the median time for the appearance of symptoms if a patient is infected with the different lineages of omicron could be just three days.

In general, symptoms will typically appear 2-to-14 days after exposure to the virus, according to the CDC. Symptoms of the virus include:

-Fever or chills

-Cough

-Shortness of breath

-Fatigue

-Muscle or body aches

-Headache

-New loss of taste or smell

-Sore throat

-Congestion or runny nose

-Nausea or vomiting

-Diarrhea

Patients are urged to seek emergency medical attention if they experience:

-Trouble breathing

-Persistent chest pain or pressure

-New confusion

-Inability to wake or stay awake

-Pale, gray, or blue-colored skin, lips, or nail beds

Read more:

First COVID Symptoms: How to Recognize the Onset of the Virus - NBC Chicago

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- A senior official at the European Union medicines agency said Thursday that many nations in the bloc are seeing a new wave of COVID-19, driven by highly-transmissible mutations of the omicron variant.

The European Medicines Agencys Marco Cavaleri told an online briefing that the BA.4 and BA.5 mutations are expected to become dominant across the continent, likely replacing all other variants by the end of July.

He said that while there is no evidence the variants make people more sick than earlier strains of the virus, the increase in transmission among older age groups is starting to translate into severe disease.

In April, the EMA advised people aged 80 and above to get a second vaccine booster. Cavaleri said that second booster doses are now being advised for people in the EU aged from 60-79 years and medically vulnerable persons of any age.

"As this new wave is unfolding over the EU, it is essential to maintain protection of vulnerable groups and avoid any postponement of vaccination, he said.

With the pandemic in its third year, almost all European nations have dropped most coronavirus restrictions and people are using the summer break to catch up on vacations that were put on ice over the first two years of the global outbreak that has killed more than 6.3 million people worldwide.

The virus is not just spreading again in Europe. The World Health Organization said June 30 that the number of new cases rose by 18% in the previous week, with more than 4.1 million cases reported globally.

The U.N. health agency said in its latest weekly report on the pandemic that the worldwide number of deaths remained relatively similar to the week before, at about 8,500. COVID-related deaths increased in three regions: the Middle East, Southeast Asia and the Americas.

Follow APs coverage of the pandemic at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic

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Medicines agency says EU is seeing 'new wave' of COVID-19 - ABC News

Families bereaved by Covid insisted Boris Johnson must still face justice at the public inquiry into the pandemic as they voiced concern that his resignation would see him make a fortune from writing and speeches while they remained scarred by grief.

Johnsons departure was greeted by relief by people who lost loved ones to the virus over the last two and half years, but the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group, which represents more than 4,000 affected families, said: Johnson will always be the man that wanted to let the bodies pile high while our loved ones desperately fought for their lives and that partied whilst we had to say goodbye to our loved ones over a screen.

The prime minister was responsible for a delayed start to the statutory public inquiry into the UKs handling of the pandemic, which was only formally opened last week despite his earlier pledge in parliament to start in spring 2022.

The Covid inquiry has only just been given the go ahead two and a half years late, said Lindsay Jackson, who lost her mother Sylvia Jackson to Covid on 17 April 2020. I want to see people held to account including Johnson for the callous disregard he showed to my mum and the other souls who lost their lives.

This is a man who has presided over the deaths of 200,000 people, broken the laws he made, lied repeatedly to us, trashed our international reputation and has brought politics and politicians into disrepute, she said. Theres very little more that he could have done wrong. But hes just losing his job. Hell lick his wounds, blame everyone else and then make his millions. Thats not justice.

Leshie Chandrapala, who lost her father Ranjith Chandrapala, a London bus driver who worked without PPE, in May 2020, said she was disappointed that Johnsons handling of the pandemic was not among the reasons for his departure.

We need Boris Johnson to go immediately so that the business of serious government can resume, including the public inquiry into the pandemic, she said. He absolutely must not be allowed to stay until autumn as a caretaker PM.

She added: He got so many things wrong during the pandemic, so I absolutely want to see him held to account at the public inquiry. I am putting my faith in Baroness Hallett and her team to uncover the truth of Boris Johnsons actions.

The inquiry has started gathering evidence and is expected to be divided into several strands, many of which will examine decision-making in Downing Street. Hearings are not expected to begin until 2023. In recent days Johnson allies have repeated his assertion that he got the big calls right on the pandemic, often citing the successful vaccination programme.

But Lobby Akinnola, who lost his father Olufemi, a care worker, in April 2020, said: While Johnson will move on to a life of writing newspaper columns and being paid eyewatering amounts to give after dinner speeches, there will be no moving on for the families like mine that have been ripped apart by his actions. Although his reign will shortly be coming to an end, his devastating impact on families like mine will not.

We can only hope that the Covid inquiry will bring some closure for us, teaching us the lessons that will save lives in the future and meaning that no one will be able to repeat Johnsons terrible mistakes and get away with it.

Read more:

Covid-19 bereaved say inquiry must hold Boris Johnson to account - The Guardian

Norwegian Cruise Line, with a global fleet of 28 ships, said Wednesday that, as of Aug. 1, it would no longer ask passengers to show negative coronavirus tests before boarding except in countries that require them, a list that includes the United States, Canada, Bermuda and Greece.

Norwegian, as a participant in the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions voluntary coronavirus program, asks vaccinated passengers in the United States to show a negative rapid antigen test within two days of their trip, or a negative P.C.R. test within three days of sailing. The C.D.C. then rates participating ships with a color status.

Cruise lines that opt out of the C.D.C. program receive a gray color status, meaning that the agency has not reviewed the companys health and safety protocols.

Most major cruise lines including Royal Caribbean and Carnival still require a negative test to board. Only a few have dropped testing requirements, but like Norwegian, the new policies dont apply to all of their voyages. One of Carnivals subsidiary lines, Holland America, ended testing requirements last week for certain Amsterdam-to-Norway trips. And last month, the Viking cruise line also nixed universal mandatory testing, but said that select ocean voyages in the United States and Canada would still require them, according to a statement on the companys website.

Norwegians announcement comes as the company, like many others, is offering big discounts to recoup business lost during the Omicron surge over the winter, a prime time for cruises, and to fill up unbooked cabins this summer.

Many cruise lines have brought back their full fleets, creating there is a glut of cabins, accompanied by bargain fares. Many deals can cost less than $100 a person a day for a cruise that includes lodging, meals and entertainment.

There are about 600,000 beds in operation, according to Cruise Industry News, a nearly 40 percent increase from the 434,000 beds in service in January.

The relaxation of the testing policy is in line with the rest of the travel, leisure and hospitality industry worldwide as society continues to adapt and return to a state of normalcy, the company said in a news release on Monday.

Norwegian is headquartered in Miami, and it has 28 ships under the Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises brands, in addition to Norwegian Cruise Line.

The rest is here:

Norwegian Cruises will drop its requirement for negative coronavirus tests in most countries, but not in the U.S. - The New York Times

The Department of Defense recently released the memorandum for the Consolidated Department of Defense Coronavirus Disease 2019 Force Health Protection (FHP) Guidance Revision 1, which amends sections 7.4 and 7.5 to align the DoD travel testing requirement with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "Rescinding Requirement for Negative PreDeparture COVID-19 Test Result or Documentation of Recovery from COVID-19 for all Airline or Other Aircraft Passengers Arriving into the United States from Any Foreign Country," effective June 12, 2022.

Specifically, the changes:

The memorandum for the Consolidated Department of Defense Coronavirus Disease 2019 Force Health Protection Guidance Revision 1 can be found here.

Read more from the original source:

Consolidated Department of Defense Coronavirus Disease 2019 Force Health Protection Guidan - Department of Defense

One of the best ways to combat COVID-19 is by understanding how your immune system responds to the virus.

That said, our body's immune system is divided into two separate systems namely, the innate and adaptive (or acquired) immune systems.

Innate immune system is the first line of defense against viruses, which includes barriers like the skin and layers in our throat or gut, chemicals in our blood, and different immune cells.

On the other hand, the adaptive or acquired immune system helps with the production of antibodies and white blood cells to both attack and remember the virus, also known as B cells, which also helps fight off the virus, if it attacks a second time. This type of immune response is slower and may take days or weeks to generate.

There is also something called the T cells, which are also part of your adaptive immune system. Some of these stimulate B cells to make antibodies, while some others eliminate the cells that have been infected by the virus.

With that brief account of how the immune system functions under a virus attack, we can also determine why some people get more sick than others. Those with asymptomatic or mild infections, both innate and adaptive immune responses seem to work as planned and normally, however, in people who develop a more severe form of infection, experts believe it is due to a weakened immune system.

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Coronavirus explainer: Can drinking green tea help with COVID symptoms? - Times of India

COVID-19 cases are ticking up across the nation again, exposing even the mildly ill to the risk of developing a still poorly understood constellation of health problems known as long COVID.

Researchers at Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania are among those exploring why some people recover from COVID unscathed, while others experience months of incapacitating symptoms. Their ongoing studies examine factors such as blood-vessel abnormalities and the frequency of symptoms.

Despite progress in treating COVID, Penn researcher Nuala Meyer has been frustrated by the reality that patients quality of life could still be pretty poor.

The clinician in me wants to know: What can we do a little bit better? said Meyer, director of the Center for Translational Lung Biology at Penn. And can we explain it better?

The phenomenon of lingering side effects from a viral infection is not new to COVID. Similar conditions were reported in some people after infections from Ebola, SARS, and Lyme disease. In those cases, the causes are not fully understood either.

But with COVID, many more are affected due to the sheer number of people infected an estimated 548 million worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.

Thats whats so overwhelming, said Michael Harhay, a professor of epidemiology and medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, who is also seeking to understand the long-term effects of COVID.

The risk is ongoing. Pennsylvania and New Jersey are both reporting COVID case increases compared with two weeks ago. Although Philadelphias counts remain steady, COVID cases have ticked up slightly in recent days in its four bordering Pennsylvania counties, according to the New York Times COVID tracker. Two neighboring New Jersey counties, Camden and Burlington, reported rising cases.

Hospitalizations remain on the decline in Pennsylvania but are rising again in New Jersey.

Nationally, COVID cases are up 4% and hospitalizations are up 10% over 14 days, largely driven by the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron subvariants. The latter is highly infectious and vaccination or previous bouts with COVID provide less protection against mild illness than seen with other strains of omicron.

Brain fog, breathlessness, fatigue, erectile dysfunction, headaches, and lost of taste or smell lasting two months or more after the initial infection are among the symptoms described as long COVID.

Estimates on how often they occur vary widely. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has cited research suggesting that one in five people ages 18 to 65 experiences long COVID symptoms after an infection and one in four people over 65 though other studies have found different results, with one Dutch finding 50% of COVID sufferers can develop long COVID, and another from Veterans Affairs reporting a frequency of just 7%.

Multiple infections appear to increase the chances of developing health problems including long COVID symptoms, according to a recent large study involving U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs health records that gained media attention after being posted online ahead of academic peer review.The effectiveness of vaccination in preventing it is unclear. Some studies have shown vaccines to offer meaningful protection against long COVID, while one recent report found that protection to be minimal.

To look for common factors, Temple researchers are analyzing CT scans taken of about 300 peoples lungs before, during, and after their hospitalizations for COVID. The effort builds on a 2021 study of people hospitalized for COVID-related pneumonia led by Daniel Salerno, Temple University Hospitals director of critical care services in the respiratory intensive care unit. Salerno found blood vessels in some patients lungs were abnormally widened.

He also noted about half of his patients who have had COVID reported some lingering symptoms, even those who didnt need to be hospitalized, and damage to blood vessels could be a cause.

COVID can affect blood vessels everywhere, Salerno said.

READ MORE: Vaccination can prevent long COVID, and may even alleviate symptoms, studies find

COVID can also inflame a thin layer of tissue lining the blood vessels, called the endothelium, which can lead to clotting.

Such damage can be difficult to detect, Salerno said, particularly in tiny blood vessels.

At Penn, cardiovascular medicine specialist Julio Chirinos is tracking cases of heart failure, strokes, and heart attacks in people hospitalized for COVID to understand if a bout with the virus increases a persons risks well after the infection clears.

He is still seeking participants for another, wider-ranging study using scans, physicals, and endurance tests to see if abnormalities can be attributed to COVID infections. That study will analyze participants livers, brains, lungs, and hearts, as well as their oxygen consumption while exercising. Researchers are hoping to include people with no history of cardiovascular problems.

I have no doubt that once all this data comes together were going to make progress on this, Chirinos said.

By studying large groups of participants, researchers expect to identify which conditions are the consequences of a COVID infection.

You can definitely determine whether somethings related to COVID and not part of the background risk of these people, Chirinos said.

Long COVID complaints like cold fingers or tingling in toes make sense as the result of a blood-flow problem, Penn researchers noted. The Temple team also expects that ongoing studies will find the vascular system is involved in long COVID, along with factors like a damaged or inflamed immune response.

READ MORE: Philadelphians isolated by long COVID find hope and connection through social media

Penn is also tracking the experiences of 88 former COVID patients for up to two years.

Blood tests every six months measure their protein levels and white blood cell counts, while surveys ask how often patients experience breathlessness, depression, or anxiety. Researchers hope to answer why the severity of the initial COVID infections doesnt necessarily predict how serious the aftereffects are.

You might expect they would have more symptoms after ICU stays and hospitalized stays, Penns Meyer said. Theres still quite a range.

Another unanswered question is how long the post-COVID symptoms linger. Over the pandemics 2 years, Temples Salerno has seen most of his patients improve. But at Penn, researchers have observed the opposite in some cases, seeing people whose lungs become progressively more stiff and scarred after an infection.

I think it just highlights the complexity of trying to understand what this virus is doing in our bodies, Meyer said.

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COVID cases keep rising and so does the risk of long COVID. Philly researchers are trying to understand why. - The Philadelphia Inquirer

Mike Stucka USA TODAY NETWORK| Athens Banner-Herald

Biden hails COVID shots for young kids

President Joe Biden visited a vaccination clinic Tuesday to celebrate that virtually all Americans can now get a COVID-19 shot Tuesday after the authorization of vaccines for kids under 5 over the weekend. (June 21)

AP

New coronavirus cases leaped in Georgia in the week ending Sunday, rising 13.8% as 20,971 cases were reported. The previous week had 18,425 new cases of the virus that causes COVID-19.

Georgia ranked 27th among the states where coronavirus was spreading the fastest on a per-person basis, a USA TODAY Network analysis of Johns Hopkins University data shows.

In the latest week coronavirus cases in the United States increased 11.8% from the week before, with 800,077 cases reported. With 3.19% of the country's population, Georgia had 2.62% of the country's cases in the last week. Across the country, 38 states had more cases in the latest week than they did in the week before.

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Previously: Planning on attending AthFest 2022? Here's a list of 10 things you'll need to know.

Clarke County reported 235 cases and zero deaths in the latest week. A week earlier, it had reported 193 cases and zero deaths. Throughout the pandemic it has reported 30,987 cases and 237 deaths.

Oconee County reported 55 cases and zero deaths in the latest week. A week earlier, it had reported 61 cases and one death. Throughout the pandemic it has reported 9,149 cases and 106 deaths.

Madison County reported 40 cases and one death in the latest week. A week earlier, it had reported 33 cases and one death. Throughout the pandemic it has reported 7,105 cases and 113 deaths.

Within Georgia, the worst weekly outbreaks on a per-person basis were in Stewart County with 408 cases per 100,000 per week; Schley County with 342; and Union County with 335. The Centers for Disease Control says high levels of community transmission begin at 100 cases per 100,000 per week.

Adding the most new cases overall were Fulton County, with 2,333 cases; Cobb County, with 1,776 cases; and Gwinnett County, with 1,627. Weekly case counts rose in 117 counties from the previous week. The worst increases from the prior week's pace were in Cobb, Richmond and Clayton counties.

>> See how your community has fared with recent coronavirus cases

Across Georgia, cases fell in 38 counties, with the best declines in Effingham County, with 88 cases from 160 a week earlier; in DeKalb County, with 1,456 cases from 1,503; and in Liberty County, with 66 cases from 111.

In Georgia, 132 people were reported dead of COVID-19 in the week ending Sunday. In the week before that, 87 people were reported dead.

A total of 2,647,568 people in Georgia have tested positive for the coronavirus since the pandemic began, and 38,579 people have died from the disease, Johns Hopkins University data shows. In the United States 87,843,561 people have tested positive and 1,017,848 people have died.

>> Track coronavirus cases across the United States

USA TODAY analyzed federal hospital data as of Sunday, July 3. Likely COVID patients admitted in the state:

Likely COVID patients admitted in the nation:

Hospitals in 33 states reported more COVID-19 patients than a week earlier, while hospitals in 28 states had more COVID-19 patients in intensive-care beds. Hospitals in 40 states admitted more COVID-19 patients in the latest week than a week prior, the USA TODAY analysis of U.S. Health and Human Services data shows.

The USA TODAY Network is publishing localized versions of this story on its news sites across the country, generated with data from Johns Hopkins University and the Centers for Disease Control. If you have questions about the data or the story, contact Mike Stucka at mstucka@gannett.com.

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Clarke County reported 235 additional COVID-19 cases this week - Online Athens