CHICAGO -- The number of new coronavirus cases has started to fall nationally, prompting health experts to voice hopes that the omicron-fueled spike that has infected tens of millions of Americans, packed hospitals and shattered records is beginning to relent.
More and more states have seen new cases fall from their peaks in recent days, as glimmers of progress have spread from a handful of eastern cities to much of the country. Through Friday, the country was averaging about 720,000 new cases a day, down from about 807,000 the previous week. Hospital admissions for covid-19 patients have leveled off.
Even as those data points emerge, the threat has by no means passed. The United States continues to identify far more infections a day than in any previous surge, and some states in the West, South and Great Plains are still seeing sharp increases. Many hospitals are full. And deaths continue to mount, with more than 2,100 announced on most days.
But after a month of extraordinary rates of case growth, long lines at testing centers and military deployments to bolster understaffed intensive care units, the decline in new-case tallies offered a sense of relief to virus-weary Americans, especially in the Northeast and parts of the Upper Midwest, where the trends were most encouraging. After another round of masking up or hunkering down, some were considering what life might look like if conditions continued to improve.
"Especially after this wave, the level of exhaustion in New York City cannot be exaggerated, and the level of numbness is quite significant," said Mark Levine, Manhattan's borough president. He added: "What we have to do now is not pretend like covid has disappeared but manage it to the point where it does not disrupt our life."
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In states where new-case numbers have started to fall, the declines have so far been swift and steep, largely mirroring the rapid ascents that began in late December. Those patterns have resembled the ones seen in South Africa -- the country whose scientists warned the world about omicron, and the first place to document a major surge of the variant. New cases in South Africa have fallen 85% from their mid-December peak, to about 3,500 cases a day from a high of 23,400, although they remain above the levels seen in the weeks before omicron took hold.
Scientists said it remained an open question whether omicron marked the transition of the coronavirus from a pandemic to a less-threatening endemic virus, or whether future surges or variants would introduce a new round of tumult.
"It's important for people to not be like, 'Oh, it's over,'" said Aubree Gordon, a public health researcher at the University of Michigan. "It's not over until we get back down to a lull. We're not there yet."
In New York, cases are falling sharply even as deaths continue to increase, with more fatalities being announced each day than at any point since the first months of the pandemic. Around Cleveland and in Washington, D.C., fewer than half as many new infections are being announced each day as in early January. And in Illinois and Maryland, hospitalizations and cases have started to decline.
"We are very encouraged by our substantially improving situation," Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland said Thursday, "but the next 10 days to two weeks are really going to be critical."
Florida reported 22,818 new covid-19 cases on Saturday, dropping the state's seven-day average to 37,414, a 31% decline from a week ago, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Hospitalizations have held steady for nearly two weeks, another key indicator that the omicron wave is slowing. There were 11,351 virus patients in Florida hospitals on Friday and 1,619 adult covid patients in intensive care, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The state reported a large batch of new vaccinations, which had been slowing significantly in recent days. The average daily vaccination number increased to 52,036 over the past week but remains at its lowest level since late October, CDC data shows.
More states in more regions continue to show signs of improvement, with Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania among those now reporting several days of sustained case declines.
But the progress is not yet universal.
Reports of new infections continue to grow in North Dakota, which is averaging four times as many cases a day than at the start of January, and in Alabama, where hospitalizations have roughly doubled over the past two weeks. Utah is averaging about 11 times as many cases a day as it was a month ago, and hospitalizations have reached record levels.
"As we've seen with delta and previous surges, it comes in these peaks and waves, where one part of the U.S. gets hit and another part gets hit afterward," said Syra Madad, an infectious disease public health researcher in New York City. "We are going to see that with omicron. Even with a decline, it comes with a very long tail."
In Kansas, where daily case rates have increased 50% in the past two weeks, Gov. Laura Kelly announced Friday that Veterans Affairs hospitals would be accepting patients not usually eligible for care because other facilities were strained.
"We are at an inflection point with the omicron variant, and the strain on our hospitals is taking a toll on our health care workers and patients -- all while the virus continues to spread rapidly through our communities," Kelly said in a statement.
Still, there is "renewed hope" that the end of the pandemic might be in sight, Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, director of the Ohio Department of Health, said at a news conference Thursday.
But through nearly two years of the pandemic, the country has celebrated hopeful moments before -- such as when the first surge in cases receded or when vaccines were authorized -- only to be disappointed by another wave.
"We need to be super vigilant about what is going on internationally," said Judith Persichilli, the health commissioner in New Jersey, where case rates are falling quickly and where temporary morgues erected at the beginning of omicron's onslaught never had to be used. "Whatever is happening overseas eventually lands on our shores, and it lands first in New York and New Jersey."
Across the country, there has been no return to the stay-at-home orders imposed early in the pandemic, although new restrictions have emerged in some places. Some schools and colleges have transitioned to online instruction, either as a precaution or because of major outbreaks. School closures because of the virus peaked in early January, with millions of children affected by district shutdowns and classroom quarantines. Since then, disruptions have decreased, according to Burbio, a data-tracking company.
Still, after two years of watching cases spike and ebb, and with scientists warning that the virus will become endemic, some people were careful not to be too optimistic about the latest data.
"Covid-19 seems to be rapidly changing all the time now," said Ari Glockner, a student at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. He added, "We don't know what it is going to be like five years from now, but I would bet we are still going to be dealing with it pretty consistently."
Information for this article was contributed by Mitch Smith, Julie Bosman and Tracey Tully of The New York Times; and by David Schutz of the South Florida Sun Sentinel (TNS).