Surpassed – COOPER GENERAL NEWS

A man inquires about a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) test at a mobile testing van in Brooklyn, New York, U.S., June 2, 2021.

Brendan McDermid | Reuters

The seven-day average of daily coronavirus cases in the U.S. surpassed the peak seen last summer when the nation didn’t have an authorized Covid-19 vaccine, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Monday, citing data published over the weekend.

U.S. Covid cases, based on a seven-day moving average, reached 72,790 on Friday, according to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s higher than the peak in average daily cases seen last summer, when the country was reporting about 68,700 new cases per day, according to the CDC.

The daily average in Covid cases has since dropped, however, falling to 68,326 new cases per day on Saturday and 63,250 new cases per day on Sunday, according to the agency.

While data published on the CDC website shows a decline in the seven-day average of daily case counts in the following days, a separate coronavirus dataset maintained by Johns Hopkins University does not show a decline. Rather it shows a continued increase in the seven-day average to nearly 80,000 new cases per day as of Sunday.

“While we desperately want to be done with this pandemic, Covid-19 is clearly not done with us and so, our battle must last a little longer,” Walensky said during a White House Covid briefing. “This is hard. This is heavy. But, we are in this together. And as we learn more about Covid, we continue to rely on proven ways to protect ourselves, our children and our loved ones.”

The CDC director’s comments come as Covid cases in the U.S. begin to spike once again, with the highly contagious delta variant fueling infections, particularly in regions of the nation with low vaccination rates.

One out of three Covid cases occurred in Florida and Texas over the past week, White House Covid czar Jeff Zients said Monday. About 17% of cases came from seven states with low vaccination rates, he added.

The seven-day average of hospital admissions is about 6,200 per day, an increase of about 41% from the previous seven-day period, according to Walensky. The seven-day average of daily deaths has also increased to 300 per day, an increase of more than 25%, she said, but still far below last summer’s peak of more than 1,100 daily deaths in early August 2020.

U.S. health officials are urging more Americans to get vaccinated against Covid as the shots have proven to be highly protective against the virus and its new variant, especially against severe disease, hospitalizations and death.

Earlier Monday, updated CDC data showed 70% of U.S. adults have had at least one shot of a Covid vaccine.

The milestone is about a month behind President Joe Biden’s original Fourth of July goal as health officials have struggled to persuade some Americans to get the shots.

In an attempt to boost the number of shots administered, some state and local officials have either offered incentives to getting vaccinated or enforced mandates.

While a very small portion of vaccinated people can experience so-called breakthrough infections, Walensky emphasized Monday that the vast majority of spread in the country is among the unvaccinated.

“If you are not vaccinated— please, protect yourself and get vaccinated,” she said.

Medicaid’s enrollment soared during the pandemic, with nearly 10 million Americans joining the public health program for the poor, a government report released Monday showed.

Eighty million people were insured with Medicaid, a record. This reflected an increase of nearly 14 percent over the twelve month period ended January 31. The number also includes participation in the children’s health insurance program, which covers children whose parents earn too much for Medicaid but too little to be able to afford any other coverage.

The increase in enrollments shows the increasingly important role of Medicaid not only as a safety net, but also as a pillar of the American health system that protects a quarter of the population.

“This tells us that Medicaid is an important program for American families,” said Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, the Biden government official who oversees Medicaid. “What we have seen during this pandemic is people want access to affordable health insurance and how important it is during a public health crisis.”

The Affordable Care Act transformed Medicaid from a targeted health service designed to help specific groups – such as expectant mothers and people with disabilities – to a much broader program that provides largely free insurance to most people below a certain income threshold. A notable exception are the 12 states – mostly in the south – that have declined to expand Medicaid under the ACA

Medicaid, where the state and federal government share the cost, covers all adults with incomes up to 138 percent of the poverty line, which would be about $ 17,420 this year for a person who would qualify.

The expansion of Medicaid in most states since most of the ACA came into effect in 2014 has provided a source of public protection for the new unemployed that did not exist a decade ago. Adult enrollment in Medicaid grew twice as fast as child enrollment, suggesting that the widespread job loss associated with the pandemic has created a large group of newly eligible adults.

“There has been significant growth in Medicaid enrollments in recent economic downturns, but their focus has been on children,” said Rachel Garfield, co-director of the Medicaid and Uninsured Program for the Kaiser Family Foundation. “This time around, it’s interesting that a lot of the enrollment is among adults.”

She also noted that Medicaid enrollment increased much faster during the economic contraction of the pandemic than in previous downturns. In 2009, at the start of the Great Recession, fewer than four million Americans took part in the program.

There may also be increased interest among uninsured Americans who were already eligible for Medicaid but only chose to enroll because of heightened health concerns during the pandemic.

“So often when we look at who’s not insured, it’s people who are eligible but not enrolled,” said Ms. Brooks-LaSure, the Medicaid officer. “Right now we see that if we make it easy for people to sign up, they will.”

In the years before the pandemic, the number of Medicaid enrollments had decreased. More than a million children lost insurance coverage between December 2017 and June 2019, a trend that rocked health care advocates. Many attributed the changes to new rules during the Trump administration that made it more difficult to log in and stay logged in.

That changed last spring when the pandemic hit and Congress gave states additional money to fund their Medicaid programs. Congress announced a 6.2 percent increase in spending on the condition that states do not de-register patients or tighten eligibility requirements.

For example, a woman who gave birth would normally have lost coverage 60 days after giving birth, but due to legislation, she could stay on Medicaid for the duration of the pandemic. These rules will remain in effect until the federal government declares the public health emergency over.

Three states – Utah, Idaho, and Nebraska – expanded Medicaid last year after voters approved voting initiatives; these countries recorded particularly large swings in school enrollment. A fourth, Oklahoma, will expand Medicaid to most low-income adults starting next month.

Even after growing under the Affordable Care Act, the Medicaid program has loopholes that are difficult to fix. The 2012 Supreme Court ruling that upheld the law’s individual insurance mandate also made the expansion of Medicaid optional for the states.

As a result, millions of low-income adults in the 12 holdout states that include Florida and Texas are still without insurance. A recent study at JAMA found that Medicaid enrollment grew faster during the pandemic in states participating in the expansion, most likely because many more people were eligible for coverage.

Generous financial incentives offered by the recent stimulus package weren’t enough to convince any of the 12 states to expand Medicaid, but senior Biden government officials say they continue to hope some get on board.

“We hope we can encourage them,” said Xavier Becerra, the secretary for health and human services, in a call to reporters last week. “We want to make sure that they expand the supply and that it is affordable.”