*And by D.C., I mean Alexandria, VA, because the publicly available D.C. data don’t seem to be collected anymore.

After last week’s slowdown in the rate of decline, we now have a slight trending upwards:

With a slight increase from 652 copies/ml to 675 copies/ml, we’re still six to seven times higher than the mid-June 2023 nadir and at half of the January 2023 season peak. That probably means around 1.0 to 1.5 percent of people are currently infected (though that’s a very rough estimate because we’re not collecting the right prevalence data). Anne Arundel County, MD also had a slight increase, so this doesn’t seem to be a weird one-off event in Alexandria, VA.

Unfortunately, the declines appear to have stalled, and we might be rising again. Hopefully, this is a blip, and we’ll have more declines soon–though I’m not sure why we should expect that.

Anyway, the prevalence is still high, but it’s not trending in the right direction. If you’re at a large-ish gathering, it’s definitely a good idea to mask up, not just to protect yourself, but to protect others too. Remember, you’re not the weirdo if you’re still trying to avoid getting (re)infected.