In an Axios-Ipsos Poll, ten percent of respondents felt that COVID represented a “serious crisis” in the Nation.  In contrast 17 percent indicated that it was not in any way a ‘crisis’.  The majority comprising 73 percent consider the pandemic a manageable problem.

Diagnosed cases of COVID, of which the majority are asymptomatic, are increasing with an upward trend to a level of 25,000 to 50,000 per day in the U.S. mainly due to sub-lineages of the omicron variant. As many as five BA subtypes have been identified worldwide, with BA.2 as the predominant pathogen. On Thursday 14th April 58,893 cases were identified, a 28.6 percent increase over 14 days. Fatalities totaled 593 with a 21.7 percent decline over two weeks.  The increase in incidence coupled with a decline in fatality is probably attributable to the level of immunity in our population. 56.9 percent of those eligible have received two doses on am mRNA vaccine with 45.3 percent ‘boosted’ with a third dose.

Since home test kits have displaced PCR assays epidemiologists no longer have a reliable indicator of the incidence rate of COVID.  A number of states have ceased reporting data on diagnoses to the CDC.  An indirect indication of the status of COVID in a metropolitan area can be derived from assay of sewage.  Data obtained from “Biobot Analytics” is used to make decisions on regional masking policy.  Hospitalizations are probably providing a more realistic indication of the extent and severity of COVID.

Irrespective of whether the population of the U.S. considers COVID to be a problem or not, daily fatalities from COVID are still in the region of 500 per day but many are dying with COVID rather than from the infection. We are approaching the unfortunate benchmark of 1 million fatalities (988,121 on April 15th) although it is accepted that for political and other reasons death certificates recorded ‘pneumonia’ as the diagnosis especially during the early months of the pandemic and we probably exceeded one million fatalities months ago based on the difference between actual recorded deaths and pre-COVID annual fatality rates.

Dr. Ashih Jha, Dean of the Brown University School of Public Health and seconded to the  White House as the COVID-response Coordinator is optimistic over the status of the infection in the U.S. He recently opined on a radio broadcast “We are really at a good moment” adding  “we have fewer people in hospital right now than at any point in the pandemic so we are in reasonably good shape”