This edition quantifies the recent weeks’ decline in new daily COVID cases, hospitalizations, and deaths.  The seven-day rolling average for new daily cases fell for 42 straight days from January 12 through February 22.  New COVID deaths decreased 6.7% this week (February 17-23) from the previous week (February 10-16).  Also, new weekly COVID-19 cases in nursing homes have declined drastically since vaccines began being administered – with an overall 85% decline in new weekly cases occurring in the past week relative to mid-December.

This week, 12.7 million vaccine doses were administered, which is about 36% higher than last week’s total. As of February 24, approximately 65.5 million vaccine doses have been received.  In all states, at least 10% of the population has now received at least one dose. 13.6% of the U.S. population has received at least one dose of the vaccine, and 6.2% is now fully vaccinated.