After a worrisome uptick in Covid-19 cases in the United States in recent weeks, there are encouraging signs that the situation is beginning to stabilize, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a briefing Tuesday that there have been declines across the board, with new cases, hospitalizations and daily deaths all falling over the past seven days.
New reported infections fell by 21 percent over the past week, with the most recent seven-day average coming in at just over 54,400 cases per day, Walensky said, calling the figure "a really hopeful decline." Hospitalizations also fell by 9 percent, with an average of more than 5,100 hospital admissions per day over the past seven days.
The most recent seven-day average for daily deaths stood at roughly 660 per day, representing a decline of 6 percent, she added.
Walensky said vaccine uptake across the country is likely fueling the turnaround and helping to flatten the curves.
"Each day more and more Americans are rolling up their sleeves and getting vaccinated, and likely contributing to these very positive trends," she said.
The CDC director's optimism during Tuesday's briefing stands in stark contrast to her remarks a month ago, when she warned of "impending doom" as Covid-19 cases rose steadily in the U.S.
"I'm speaking today not necessarily as your CDC director and not only as your CDC director, but as a wife, as a mother, as a daughter, to ask you to just please hold on a little while longer," Walensky said in a briefing March 29. "We have so much to look forward to, so much promise and potential of where we are and so much reason for hope. But right now I'm scared."