The Covid Situation as 2022 Begins

It should be over by now, right? Unfortunately, we're still in the thick of the coronavirus pandemic. The first batch of 2022 results from the Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey, fielded December 29-January 10, reveal just how deeply we are mired in Covid troubles...

• The number of Americans aged 18 or older who have been diagnosed with Covid climbed to 57 million in January, up from 45 million in early December. As of January 10, nearly one in four adults (23 percent) say they have been diagnosed with Covid.
• Fully 85 percent of adults have received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine. Fewer than half (43 percent) have received three or more doses (booster), but this is up from 33 percent in early December. 
• 17 million say they "will definitely not" get a Covid vaccine, 2 million fewer than in early December. That's progress, right?
• Among the nation's parents with school-aged children, just 57 percent say their children have gotten a Covid vaccine. 
• More than one-third (38 percent) of parents with children under age 5 report that their child has been unable to attend day care or another childcare arrangement in the past four weeks because of Covid safety concerns.
• Among adults who had planned to take classes from a post-secondary institution this term, nearly one in five (18 percent) canceled those plans.  
• The number of Americans who ate indoors at a restaurant in the past seven days fell to the lowest level since the Census Bureau first asked this question last summer. 
• As of January 18, 2022, Covid has killed 853,230 people in the United States, according to the CDC's Covid Data Tracker.

Source: Census Bureau, Week 41 Household Pulse Survey: December 29, 2021—January 10, 2022