Important update: Healthcare facilities

CDC has updated select ways to operate healthcare systems effectively in response to COVID-19 vaccination. Learn more

Find the latest information:
Aquatics FAQs
Recommendations for Fully Vaccinated People
COVID-19 Homepage

To maximize protection from the Delta variant and prevent possibly spreading it to others, get vaccinated as soon as you can and wear a mask indoors in public if you are in an area of substantial or high transmission.

UPDATE

Given new evidence on the B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant, CDC has updated the guidance for fully vaccinated people. CDC recommends universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff, students, and visitors to K-12 schools, regardless of vaccination status. Children should return to full-time in-person learning in the fall with layered prevention strategies in place.

UPDATE

The White House announced that vaccines will be required for international travelers coming into the United States, with an effective date of November 8, 2021. For purposes of entry into the United States, vaccines accepted will include FDA approved or authorized and WHO Emergency Use Listing vaccines. More information is available here.

COVID-19 Forecasts: Hospitalizations

Updated Oct. 20, 2021

Reported and forecasted new COVID-19 hospital admissions as of October 18, 2021.

Interpretation of Forecasts of New Hospitalizations

This week’s national ensemble predicts that the number of new daily confirmed COVID-19 hospital admissions will likely decrease, with 1,600 to 8,700 new confirmed COVID-19 hospital admissions likely reported on November 12, 2021.
The state- and territory-level ensemble forecasts predict that over the next 4 weeks, the number of daily confirmed COVID-19 hospital admissions will likely decrease in 27 jurisdictions, which are indicated in the forecast plots below. Trends in numbers of future reported hospital admissions are uncertain or predicted to remain stable in the other states and territories.
Ensemble forecasts combine diverse independent team forecasts into one forecast. They have been among the most reliable forecasts in performance over time, but even the ensemble forecasts do not reliably predict rapid changes in the trends of reported cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. They should not be relied upon for making decisions about the possibility or timing of rapid changes in trends.

National Forecasts

National Forecast Hosp with Reported Data Ensemble 2021-10-18

The figure shows the number of new confirmed COVID-19 hospital admissions reported in the United States each day from August 10 through October 11 and forecasted new COVID-19 hospital admissions per day over the next 4 weeks, through November 12.
This week, ensemble forecasts of new reported COVID-19 hospital admissions included forecasts from 7 modeling groups, each of which contributed a forecast for at least one jurisdiction.
Models make various assumptions about the levels of social distancing and other interventions, which may not reflect recent changes in behavior. See model descriptions below for details on the assumptions and methods used to produce the forecasts.

Download national forecast data excel icon[XLS – 17 KB]

State Forecasts

State-level forecasts show the predicted number of new COVID-19 hospital admissions per day for the next 4 weeks by state. Each state forecast figure uses a different scale due to differences in the number of new COVID-19 hospital admissions per day between states and only forecasts meeting a set of ensemble inclusion criteria are shown. Further details are available here: https://covid19forecasthub.org/doc/ensemble/external icon. Plots of the state-level ensemble forecasts and the underlying data can be downloaded below.

Download state forecasts pdf icon[PDF – 1 MB]

Download all forecast data excel icon[CSV – 802 KB]

Additional forecast data and information on forecast submission are available at the COVID-19 Forecast Hubexternal icon.

Forecast Inclusion, Evaluation, and Assumptions

The teams with forecasts included in the ensembles are displayed below. Forecasts are included when they meet a set of submission and data quality requirements, further described here: https://github.com/reichlab/covid19-forecast-hub#ensemble-modelexternal icon.

Ensemble and individual team forecast performance is evaluated using a variety of metrics, including the assessment of prediction interval coverage, available at https://delphi.cmu.edu/forecast-eval/external icon.

Reported daily new hospital admissions can vary due to variable staffing and inconsistent reporting patterns within the week. Thus, daily variations in the reported numbers and the forecasts may not fully represent the true number of confirmed COVID-19 hospital admissions in each jurisdiction on a specific day.

The forecasts make different assumptions about social distancing measures and use different methods and data sets to estimate the number of new hospital admissions. Additional individual model details are available here: https://github.com/cdcepi/COVID-19-Forecasts/blob/master/COVID-19_Forecast_Model_Descriptions.mdexternal icon.

Intervention assumptions fall into multiple categories:

These modeling groups make assumptions about how levels of social distancing will change in the future:
- Columbia Universityexternal icon (Model: Columbia)
These modeling groups assume that existing social distancing measures in each jurisdiction will continue through the projected 4-week time period:
- Georgia Institute of Technology, College of Computingexternal icon (Model: GT-DeepCOVID)
- Johns Hopkins University, Applied Physics Labexternal icon (Model: JHU-APL)
- Johns Hopkins University, Applied Physics Labexternal icon (Model: Gecko)
- Karlen Working Groupexternal icon (Model: Karlen)
- Northeastern University, Laboratory for the Modeling of Biological and Socio-technical Systemsexternal icon (Model: MOBS)
- University of Southern Californiaexternal icon (Model: USC)

¹ The full range of the prediction intervals is not visible for all state plots. Please see the forecast data for the full range of state-specific prediction intervals.

Additional Resources