Third Wave of COVID-19 Continues to Ease

In January 2020, when executives from Reinsurance Group of America Inc., a reinsurer, were talking generally about what RGA classified as a severe pandemic, they gave figures implying that they would see a 17% increase in the overall U.S. mortality rate as a 200-year mortality event.

RGA and other insurers have said in recent weeks that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a significant increase in life insurance claims, but not as great of an increase as they had originally feared, because mortality has been much lower for people covered by life insurance than for members of the general U.S. population.

Forecasts

CDC analysts use forecasts from a wide range of government, academic, commercial and independent nonprofit sources to create a consensus forecast chart.

The latest CDC consensus chart shows that the number of new COVID-19 cases is likely to continue to fall at least through March 15.

One factor that could make the intensity figures look better than expected, and push the number of new U.S. cases close to zero, is progress with getting people vaccinated against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes COVID-19.

Overall, as of Feb. 11, about 35 million of the 330 million U.S. residents had received at least one dose of the vaccine, 11 million people had received two doses, and public and private teams were vaccinating an average of about 1.6 million people per day.

A factor that could lead to a fourth big wave of COVID-19 cases would be a new SARS-CoV-2 variant that spreads easily and fails to respond to the new COVID-19 vaccines.

In the new COVID Data Tracker Weekly Review, for example, CDC officials have included a map showing where public health officials have detected cases of COVID-19 caused by the SARS-CoV-2 variant B.1.1.7. That variant first emerged in the United Kingdom.

Officials have recorded just 981 B.1.1.7 cases in the United States, and laboratories have found that the current COVID-19 vaccines protect against that variant.

But "the emergence of variants, such as B.1.1.7, reminds us that we all need to re-double our efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19," CDC officials write. "It is more important than ever that we all wear well-fitting masks, stay at least 6 feet apart from people we don't live with, avoid crowds and poorly ventilated spaces, and wash our hands often."