See where COVID cases are rising amid summer wave: New CDC data
As the U.S. approaches the midpoint of summer, the CDC is reporting cases of the virus are growing or likely growing in more than half of all states, including many in the South and Southeast.
The center's July 18 report shows at least 26 states plus Washington, D.C., are encountering a summer surge, according to its epidemic trend modeling, using data from emergency department visits. The CDC notes its modeling indicates trends in overall cases, not the actual numbers of current infections.
New COVID variant is spreading: What are the symptoms?
A familiar summer surge
The rate of positive COVID-19 tests is increasing nationally, the CDC said of the last week in data, with emergency department visits for the virus are increasing among children 4 years old and younger.
Though there is an uptick in COVID-19 cases in more than two dozen states, the CDC says the overall amount of people seeking care for acute respiratory illnesses is at a very low level. That's accompanied by low levels of seasonal influenza activity and very low levels of RSV activity, the CDC says.
Overall, trends in COVID-19 cases continue downward as compared to the last few years, according to long-term data trends in deaths, emergency room visits and positive cases.
The U.S. has seen a wave of higher COVID-19 cases every summer since 2020.
COVID-19 in 2025: What's the latest vaccine guidance? It's complicated.
COVID-19 cases are growing in 10 states:
The CDC's latest report says cases are likely growing in more than a dozen other states, plus Washington, D.C. In one state − Montana − COVID-19 cases are likely declining.
COVID-19 cases are likely growing in the following 16 states:
Kathryn Palmer is a national trending news reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach her at kapalmer@usatoday.com and on X @KathrynPlmr.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Scientific American
18 minutes ago
- Scientific American
The Pandemic Aged Everyone's Brain—Even in Healthy People
The brains of healthy people aged faster during the COVID-19 pandemic than did the brains of people analysed before the pandemic began, a study of almost 1,000 people suggests. The accelerated ageing occurred even in people who didn't become infected. The accelerated ageing, recorded as structural changes seen in brain scans, was most noticeable in older people, male participants and those from disadvantaged backgrounds. But cognitive tests revealed that mental agility declined only in participants who picked up a case of COVID-19, suggesting that faster brain ageing doesn't necessarily translate into impaired thinking and memory. The study 'really underlines how significant the pandemic environment was for mental and neurological health', says Mahdi Moqri, a computational biologist who studies ageing at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. It's unclear whether the pandemic-associated brain ageing is reversible, because the study analysed scans taken at only two time points, adds Moqri. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. The findings were published today in Nature Communications. Pandemic effect Previous research has offered clues that SARS-CoV-2 infections can worsen neurodegeneration and cognitive decline in older people. But few studies have explored whether the pandemic period — a tumultuous time marked by social isolation, lifestyle disruptions and stress for many — also affected brain ageing, says study co-author Ali-Reza Mohammadi-Nejad, a neuroimaging researcher at the University of Nottingham, UK. To find out, Mohammadi-Nejad and his colleagues analysed brain scans collected from 15,334 healthy adults with an average age of 63 years in the UK Biobank (UKBB) study, a long-term biomedical monitoring scheme. They trained machine-learning models on hundreds of structural features of the participants' brains, which taught the model how the brain looks at various ages. The team could then use these models to predict the age of a person's brain. The difference between that value and a participant's chronological age is the 'brain age gap'. The team then applied the brain-age models to a separate group of 996 healthy UKBB participants who had all had two brain scans at least a couple of years apart. Some of the participants had had one scan before the pandemic and another after the pandemic's onset. Those who'd had both scans before the pandemic were designated the control group. The models estimated each participant's brain age at the time of both scans. Nearly six months more The models predicted that the brains of people who had lived through the pandemic had aged 5.5 months faster on average than had those of people in the control group, irrespective of whether those scanned during the pandemic had ever contracted COVID-19. 'Brain health is shaped not only by illness, but by our everyday environment,' says Mohammadi-Nejad. Pandemic-related brain ageing was most pronounced among older participants and men, who are known to be more susceptible to neurological changes when they are stressed than women are. The brains of those experiencing hardship, such as unemployment, low income and poor health, also aged faster than did those of other participants, suggesting that these lifestyle stressors have a detrimental impact on brain health. Form and function Next, Mohammadi-Nejad and his colleagues assessed participants who had completed cognitive tests both times they were scanned. They found that only those who had a SARS-CoV-2 infection in the interval between the scans showed signs of cognitive decline, such as reduced mental flexibility and processing speed. This suggests that physical brain ageing might not have been severe enough to affect mental acuity during the pandemic. 'Some changes do not trigger symptoms, and some others take many years for any symptom to be manifested,' says Mohammadi-Nejad. Although the findings are 'compelling' evidence that brain ageing accelerated during the pandemic, more work needs to be done to investigate a causal link, says Agustín Ibáñez, a neuroscientist at the Adolfo Ibáñez University in Santiago. He adds that future studies should include data on factors such as mental health, isolation and lifestyle to clarify the mechanisms underlying the brain-ageing effect and how it plays out in people from different backgrounds. The next steps for Mohammadi-Nejad and his colleagues are to unravel some of these mechanisms and explore whether the effects are long-lasting.
Yahoo
35 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Brain health 'detrimentally' affected during pandemic, study finds
THE Covid-19 pandemic was 'detrimental' to brain health, even among people who were never infected, a new study suggests. Academics suggest the strain on people's lives – from isolation for weeks on end to the uncertainty surrounding the crisis – may have aged the brains of the nation. They found that brain ageing during the pandemic was 'more pronounced' among men, older people and people from deprived backgrounds. The Covid pandemic of five years ago not only led to people losing their lives - in Carlisle, 515 people died with the virus [they had Covid on their death certificate] - but also prompted a series of societal lockdowns which have had long-term effects. In the new national study, brain ageing models were trained on more than 15,000 healthy people. These were then applied to almost 1,000 people taking part in the UK Biobank study – a long-term study tracking the health of middle and older aged adults. Half of the group had brain scans before the pandemic while the others had brain scans before and after the global crisis. After looking at the scans, academics said that the pandemic 'significantly' accelerated brain ageing. This was assessed by their brain age, as determined by the scans, compared with their actual age. The research team found that, on average, the scans taken after people had lived through the crisis had a '5.5-month higher deviation of brain age gap'. 'We found that the Covid-19 pandemic was detrimental to brain health and induced accelerated brain ageing… regardless of SARS-CoV-2 infection,' the experts from the University of Nottingham wrote in the journal Nature Communications. Dr Ali-Reza Mohammadi-Nejad, who led the study, said: 'What surprised me most was that even people who hadn't had Covid showed significant increases in brain ageing rates. 'It really shows how much the experience of the pandemic itself, everything from isolation to uncertainty, may have affected our brain health.' The research team also examined whether having Covid-19 affected someone's cognitive performance by examining the results of tests taken at the time of the scans. They found that people who were infected with the virus appeared to perform more poorly on cognitive tests when they were assessed again after the pandemic. Professor Dorothee Auer, professor of neuroimaging and senior author on the study, added: 'This study reminds us that brain health is shaped not only by illness, but by our everyday environment. 'The pandemic put a strain on people's lives, especially those already facing disadvantage. We can't yet test whether the changes we saw will reverse, but it's certainly possible, and that's an encouraging thought.'
CNET
an hour ago
- CNET
This Free Heat Warning System Could Help You Prepare for Dangerous Summer Conditions
A massive heat dome is gripping much of the US again this week, with the Midwest facing a brutal combination of scorching temperatures and stifling humidity due in part to so-called "corn sweat," or the extra moisture crops release into the air. This added humidity is pushing heat indexes well above 100 degrees across parts of the Corn Belt and beyond, compounding the risks for millions under excessive heat warnings and advisories. The extreme heat bearing down across the US this summer can have a serious impact on public health. Excess heat can exacerbate common health conditions, but it can also mess with your air conditioning, overheat phones and cause meltdowns for other tech. If you live in an area at risk for extreme heat, or know someone who does, you can sign up for a free alert system to help you prepare. The HeatRisk tool from the National Weather Service can send personalized warnings straight to your inbox, giving you advance notice when dangerously high temperatures are headed your way. HeatRisk is free to use and you'll want to keep tabs on it to avoid heat safety issues, such as heatstroke, dehydration or fatigue. Here's how to use it and why you should. Read more: This CDC Tool Can Help You Track Heat Risks on Trips and in Your Area What is NWS HeatRisk? Heat across the US in summer 2025. Screenshot by Macy Meyer/CNET NWS HeatRisk is a clickable map of the US, which is used to forecast extreme heat and assess the impact of that weather on public health. You can click anywhere on the interactive map and pull up a seven-day forecast of risk assessments for any city, town or area. The threat assessment is built on a five-level system that's color-coded for severity, with green representing little to no risk and magenta representing the highest risk. The map will display a seven-day forecast for anywhere in the country, along with the color of the health threat level. The system also considers how unusual the heat is for your area, how long the heat is expected to last and how it could affect people who are more vulnerable, such as older adults, kids or outdoor workers. Read more: Super Common Health Conditions Can Make a Heat Wave More Dangerous: Here's How to Prepare Threat colors NWS HeatRisk has five levels, each with a different color that corresponds to the size of the health risk: 0: Green According to the NWS tool, there's little to no risk involved with the forecasted heat at the green level. 1: Yellow At the yellow level, there's a minor risk for people who are extremely sensitive to heat. 2: Orange The orange level represents a moderate risk to the general public, with potential danger to health systems and heat-sensitive industries. 3: Red Red means there's a major risk to anyone without access to immediate cooling and hydration, with likely impacts to health systems and heat-sensitive industries. 4: Magenta The most extreme level is magenta. It's both a rare occurrence and one that's of long duration, with no overnight relief and is likely to affect health systems, heat-sensitive industries and infrastructure. How to sign up for heat risk alerts To get free heat warnings, go to enter your ZIP code and sign up for email or text alerts. You'll get daily updates when your area faces extreme heat levels that could pose a health risk. Signing up for alerts is a quick step that could help you plan ahead, from adjusting outdoor activities to checking on family or neighbors, or just opting to stay hydrated and inside. Other ways to track heat risks Similar to NWS HeatRisk, a tool from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called the HeatRisk Dashboard gives you a seven-day forecast to assess the potential health impact from extreme heat. Data Explorer is another tool from the CDC's Environmental Public Health Tracking Program, which offers further HeatRisk information and assessment resources for COVID-19 and other illnesses. Read more: Here's How to Keep Your Kitchen Cool (and Lower Your Energy Bill) During a Heat Wave Why extreme heat warnings matter Summer 2025 has already been a scorcher in many parts of the country. It's important to stay diligent since extreme heat is the deadliest weather hazard in the US, causing more deaths each year than hurricanes, floods or tornadoes. The risks of heat are only growing. Heat waves are lasting longer, nighttime temperatures are staying high and unusual humidity -- like the current "corn sweat" in the Midwest -- can make it even harder for your body to cool down. Staying informed is one of the easiest ways to protect yourself and your loved ones. Along with signing up for alerts, the CDC recommends learning the signs of heat-related illnesses, drinking plenty of water and never leaving children or pets in cars. For more ways to stay safe this summer, check out CNET's guide to the best portable AC units, tips for cooling down this summer and how to make your home more heat-resilient.
