COVID hospitalizations reach new record low nationwide, CDC says

The number of Americans hospitalized with COVID-19 has fallen to a new record low nationwide, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports. 

For the first time, preliminary figures from the CDC totalled just 8,256 COVID-19 hospitalizations for the past week, marking a record low for this key remaining indicator to track the threat posed by the virus. 

The CDC's data, updated late Thursday, has never before fallen below 9,000 weekly admissions of COVID-19 patients, since it first began tracking this metric over the summer of 2020, early during the pandemic.