Based on the Centers for Disease Control’s COVID-19 Data Tracker website, here is the FEHBlog’s chart of new weekly COVID-19 cases and deaths over the 14th week of 2020 through 29th week of this year (beginning April 2, 2020, and ending July 21, 2021; using Thursday as the first day of the week in order to facilitate this weekly update):

and here is the CDC’s latest overall weekly hospitalization rate chart for COVID-19:

The FEHBlog has noticed that the new cases and deaths chart shows a flat line for new weekly deaths  because new cases materially exceed new deaths. Accordingly here is a chart of new COVID-19 deaths over the period (April 2, 2020, through July 21, 2021):

Finally here is a COVID-19 vaccinations chart over the period December 17, 2020, through July 21, 2021, which also uses Thursday as the first day of the week:

Fortune has an excellent, chart-filled article about where we stand with COVID-19. According to the CDC, as of today, nearly half of the total U.S. population (48.9%) is fully vaccinated.

The New York Times reports that “As Israel struggles with a new surge of coronavirus cases, its health ministry reported on Thursday that although effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine remains high against severe illness, its protection against infection by the coronavirus may have diminished significantly compared with this winter and early spring.” Of course, Pfizer and Moderna have developed a third booster shot, and the Times adds that “Senior [Biden Administration] officials now say they expect that people who are 65 and older or who have compromised immune systems will most likely need a third shot from Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna, two vaccines based on the same technology that have been used to inoculate the vast majority of Americans thus far. That is a sharp shift from just a few weeks ago, when the administration said it thought there was not enough evidence to back boosters yet.”

STAT News asks and answers burning questions about the COVID-19 pandemic and here is the conclusion

Does Delta mean we’re not going to eradicate Covid-19?

Covid-19 isn’t going to be eradicated, but that was the reality before Delta came around.STAT+: 

Remember, the long game with the virus is that our bodies become so used to recognizing it and warding it off that, over time, it becomes little more than a nuisance. With each exposure to the virus, either through an infection or an exposure-mimicking vaccine, our bodies get retrained to fight it. Eventually, SARS-CoV-2 is likely to join the ranks of respiratory viruses that cause occasional colds, with rare exceptions of serious illness.

A reasonable goal indeed.

Becker’s Hospital Review interviews AHIP’s President Matt Eyles. Here’s a snippet:

Q: What do you think are the top three biggest challenges facing payers at this time?

ME: I’d say continuing to navigate the COVID and post-COVID environment, what the impact is going to be with respect to patients who have deferred care as a result of the pandemic — what will the new normal look like?

I think another area is how do we make sure that we have lasting impacts from the shift to telehealth, and that we continue to move forward with respect to making sure that that becomes a really important part of the permanent landscape post-COVID, but that also is designed in a way so that it doesn’t just become another cost increase because more people are just accessing it through different channels and we’re not actually acting more efficiently.

So I’d say those are probably two of the bigger challenges. And then I think third is how we continue to evolve the system toward a more value-based system and an interoperable one that ensures patients have access to the consumer tools and prices they need to make informed healthcare decisions. It’s an incredibly complex effort. It’s one that we absolutely need to move forward with in the right way. But I think some of the timetables that we’re looking for with respect to implementation are very challenging right now in terms of getting to a truly interoperable healthcare system that shares information seamlessly between providers, payers and consumers.

Finally, Deloitte Consulting opines that health and wellness have become CEO priorities in an detail insight publication.