COVID falling in 49 of 50 states as deaths near 900,000

With the brutal omicron wave rapidly easing its grip, new cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. are falling in 49 of the 50 states, even as the nation’s death toll closes in on another bleak round number: 900,000

With the brutal omicron wave rapidly loosening its grip, new cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. are falling in 49 of 50 states, even as the nation's death toll closes in on another bleak round number: 900,000.

The number of lives lost to the pandemic in the U.S. stood at over 897,000 as of midday Friday, with deaths running at an average of more than 2,400 a day, back up to where they were last winter, when the vaccine drive was still getting started.

New cases per day have tanked by almost a half-million nationwide since mid-January, the curve trending downward in every state but Maine. And the number of Americans in the hospital with COVID-19 has fallen 15% over that period to about 124,000.

Similarly, an early-warning program that looks for the virus in sewage found that COVID-19 infections are declining in the majority of participating U.S. communities, according to data posted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.