The Centers for Disease Control and Protection (CDC) has no plans to ease up on restrictions anytime soon with nearly 500 COVID-related deaths being reported every day in the United States on average.
The federal agency is expected to publish an updated summary of its COVID guidance within this week. According to a draft document that was reviewed by NBC News, there are no significant changes in the current advice to test, mask, or isolate.
The document is not final, though, and could change before its expected public release this week. According to NBC News data, average COVID case numbers hit their highest level of the current surge last week, when an average of more than 136,000 cases per day were recorded on July 29. That is certainly an undercount, though, because of home testing.
COVID cases no longer overwhelming hospital systems
Still, cases are no longer overwhelming hospital systems as they were early on in the COVID pandemic. The average number of beds filled with those patients who have the coronavirus has leveled off, and started declining last Saturday for the first time in more than three months.
Data showed that the number of reported daily deaths on average continue to slowly tick upward, with 477 recorded on Thursday, August 4. That was the highest seven-day average documented since the middle of April.
One person with knowledge of the plans of the CDC said that the fact that around 500 people are still dying every day due to the coronavirus is huge and does not bode well for any relaxation of COVID restrictions in the near future.
There is some hopefulness, however, among intensive care providers. Dr. Todd Rice, who is the director of Vanderbilt University Medical Center's Medical intensive care unit, said that there is definitely something different now and they have not seen a critical illness from COVID in probably three months.
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Hybrid immunity doing its part to limit worst consequences of COVID
Rice and others credited the decrease in people sick enough to be in hospital intensive care units in part to a growing level of population-wide immunity from COVID, either from infection, vaccination, or both.
Bill Hanage, who is an epidemiologist and associate professor at Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, said that they are hopeful that in the long run, the hybrid immunity is going to do a pretty good job at limiting the worst consequences of the virus.
Other advancements that appear to limit the impact of the coronavirus include treatments like monoclonal antibodies and Paxlovid. Hanage, who was not involved with the guidance of the CDC, said that it is reasonable to suggest that holding onto interventions is a good idea as they move into the fall and winter, which are likely to be worse.
