Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Before we get to that, no wards are below the German rollback threshold of 50 new cases per 100,000 per week–which also is the threshold the CDC suggests schools for all grades can reopen (0.05% in the second column below; n/a is not available):

Wards 2 and 6 had massive increases, while Wards 1, 4, and 7 had large declines. The increase in Ward 2 was largely driven by the Georgetown and Foggy Bottom/GWU neighborhoods. City-wide, the percent positive rate is good.

Vaccination is mostly grinding along, albeit at around 0.15% per day, which is a slight increase. We had six deaths in the last week, and hospitalizations have declined dramatically. We still have no significant vaccine requirements for patronizing indoor establishments, and none seem on the horizon.

My concern now is that people seem to be getting lax again about mask wearing even as the first people in the ‘general population’ are about six weeks away from getting the third dose (if they choose so–my guess is the ‘early vaccinators’ will get their boosters if they can and do so quickly). Combined with a lot of stupid activity over Halloween weekend and there’s a good change we’re going to see a mini-surge, driven largely by younger people being stupid (it happens). Hopefully, it won’t turn into a full-blown spike. Meanwhile, the city as a whole still isn’t vaccinated enough (enough likely means 85 percent fully vaccinated), and the D.C. Council and Mayor Bowser still aren’t pushing for vaccination requirements for non-essential businesses.

We could do so much better with good leadership.

Rage is still the appropriate emotion.