Description and graphics showing how coronavirus variants have spread in the U.S.

As Variants Have Spread, Progress Against the Virus in U.S. Has Stalled Vaccinations have topped three million per day, but cases have risen again amid the presence of more-contagious variants, restriction rollbacks and more travel. The New York Times

United States coronavirus cases have increased again after hitting a low point late last month, and some of the states driving the upward trend have also been hit hardest by variants, according to an analysis of data from Helix, a lab testing company.

The country’s vaccine rollout has sped up since the first doses were administered in December, recently reaching a rolling average of more than three million doses per day. And new U.S. cases trended steeply downward in the first quarter of the year, falling by almost 80 percent from mid-January through the end of March.

But during that period, states also rolled back virus control measures, and now mobility data shows a rise in people socializing and traveling. Amid all this, more-contagious variants have been gaining a foothold, and new cases are almost 20 percent higher than they were at the lowest point in March.

“It is a pretty complex situation, because behavior is changing, but you’ve also got this change in the virus itself at the same time,” said Emily Martin, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

Michigan has seen the sharpest rise in cases in the last few weeks. B.1.1.7 — the more transmissible and more deadly variant of the coronavirus that was first discovered in the United Kingdom — may now make up around 70 percent of all of the state’s new cases, according to the Helix data.

Several states in the Northeast also have among the country’s worst outbreaks now. Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, among others, are all experiencing marked rises in case counts, and labs have identified both the B.1.1.7 variant and large shares of another variant, B.1.526.

The B.1.526 variant, which first appeared in New York City in samples from November, appears in two forms: one with a mutation that may help the virus evade antibodies and another that may help it bind more tightly to human cells. ...

(Link to full article for graphs)   https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/04/06/us/variants-cases-spread.html?searchResultPosition=1