Exactly one year after the U.S. passed 1 million coronavirus cases, the nation has reported a staggering total of more than 32 million infections. But the latest numbers also show the U.S. pandemic could finally be easing, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
Potential surges may have collapsed in nearly all states, a USA TODAY analysis of the data shows. National case-count leaders New York, Michigan and now Florida all have reported falling case counts. But the threat has also fallen in most states with smaller populations.
“We should be mostly heading down toward a new normal,” tweeted Dr. Ashish K. Jha, dean of Brown University’s school of public health, noting that most U.S. adults are now at least partially vaccinated. Clinical trials are underway for vaccinating children as young as 6 months in age.
Florida, which still leads the nation in new cases, has seen those case counts fall 12% from the previous week. It only became the leader because counts in Michigan have plunged more than 36% from earlier this month.
Still, three states seem to be struggling with persistently rising cases: Colorado and Washington, where cases have more than doubled since their lulls in March, and Oregon, where cases are nearly 3 1/2 times higher than they were in March. Deaths have been increasing in those states, too, with 135 deaths reported in the week ending Tuesday compared with 78 deaths in the week ending March 27.
Those increases and the states’ populations are too…
