CDC’s narrower COVID window shows a hospitalization surge
The states that still report data appear to be worse off than they were a year ago.
U.S. hospitals may now be caring for about 50% more patients with COVID-19 than they were treating a year ago, according to tracking data published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The newest reasonably complete figures are for the week ending Aug. 10.
For the week ending Aug. 10, the overall COVID hospitalization rate increased to 4.6 per 100,000 people, up from 2.9 per 100,000 people for the week ending Aug. 12, 2023.
That means the total number of people entering the participating hospitals with COVID increased 59%, year over year.
The CDC also reports hospitalization rates for two groups of working-age people: people ages 18 through 49 and people ages 50 through 64.
For people in the 18-49 age group, the COVID hospitalization rate increased to 1.7 per 100,000 people for the week ending Aug. 10, from 1.1 per 100,000 in mid-August 2023.
For people in the 50-65 age group, the COVID hospitalization rate climbed to 3.8 per 100,000, from 2.4 per 100,000.
The numbers
The CDC is no longer able to provide the kind of detailed 50-state data it published during the first three years after COVID appeared. The old COVID data reporting requirements have expired.
But the CDC is still compiling COVID data submitted voluntarily by about 300 hospitals in 13 states.
What it means
In the states still sending in hospitalization data, U.S. employers’ COVID care bills for the third quarter of this year are on track to be more than 50% higher than they were in the third quarter of 2023.
Related: Health spending now exceeds pre-pandemic levels as utilization of care remains uneven
Death
The CDC also reported mortality data for the month of July.
A comparison of the July death data with CDC hospitalization figures for July shows that the overall percentage of people who entered U.S. hospitals with COVID who died was 4.5%.
The death rate for hospitalized COVID patients was 0.7% for patients in the 18-49 age group and 2.1% for patients in the 50-64 age group.
The most recent two weeks
One challenge for CDC data watchers is interpreting the very latest figures.
The CDC COVID dashboard shows hospitalization rates falling in the weeks ending Aug. 7 later and the death rate for August being lower than the death rate for July.
But CDC officials emphasize that the figures for the latest weeks are subject to lag and likely to be incomplete.
That means that the reported COVID hospitalization and death rates for late August could increase sharply as more states send the CDC their data.