Much of the media coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States has served media companies very well by creating a lot of fear in the viewers—some of it warranted.

They often focus on single anecdotal stories about young people dying, which is still rare overall, or about "milestone" numbers of cases nationwide, which sounds scary, but doesn't reflect the whole truth.

National Geographic is one company that is doing a better job reflecting both the positive and the negative. Otherwise, it is difficult to find reporting about where coronavirus suffering is becoming uncommon, such as in most every New England state.

Arizona is continuing its vast improvement, bringing down death rates and number of cases—and the same is true for some states in the South and Midwest, as seen in the charts below.

Even Florida, which most people assume to be doing poorly, is seeing its hospitalization totals and new cases drop pretty continuously, according to a new article based on reports from the Florida Department of Health and the Orlando Sentinel.

WS wanted to look at the trend lines to identify the positive news, especially from the US, but also from England and Italy—and, it turns out, there is a lot of good news that you and I rarely see in the mainstream media.

Share this news to help get the word out, so more people have hope.

The United States Centers for Disease Control reported on September 4 that new COVID-19 cases, overall, have been declining since mid-July. Nationally, the average number of new cases has been declining for over a month and a half.

"Indicators that track influenza-like illness and COVID-19-like illness continued to decrease or remain stable nationally and in all ten regions."

Remember, there are still some states where the numbers may be going up. The above quote refers to regions, and numbers nationally across the USA.

Hospitalization rates and mortality attributed to COVID-19 also declined during week 35, which ending August 29. And, hospitalizations have continuously declined since peaking at 58,000 in July.

In a broader sense, taking into account other illnesses in the US, based on death certificate data, the percentage of deaths attributed to pneumonia, influenza, or COVID-19 for week 35 dropped more than 4 percent from the previous week— from 10.7% down to 6.6%.

In the UK, the number of people in hospital with Covid-19 has plummeted by 96% since the peak of the pandemic, according to The Times in the UK.

In fact, the overall death rate in England and Wales was lower in 2020 than it was in 2019 for July, according to the Office for National Statistics.

New York has reported its lowest COVID-19 infection rate since the start of the pandemic and almost the entire Northeast region of the US has tackled the coronavirus problem very well throughout the summer.

Realistically, statistics for COVID cases and deaths in the US can be tricky, but given all the trouble getting these right, trend lines are a fantastic window into progress.

Here are some of the states with the biggest decreases in the past 7 days. The top image shows number of cases dropping, bottom image shows deaths declining.

A decrease suggests the virus is being controlled.

Science and medicine are ‘getting smarter', even as the virus changes its characteristics.

The likelihood of someone dying after being admitted to intensive care with COVID-19 has pretty much halved since the early days of the pandemic, thanks to better understanding of how to treat the disease in the emergency room.

Our Editor-in-Chief just returned from Italy, which was devastated by the virus in early spring. Most things have returned to normal in the northern part of the country, which was the region most heavily hit.

People wear masks and use hand sanitizer as a habit whenever entering grocery stores or restaurants—but, in the case of restaurants or bars, as soon as they get to their table the masks come off.

A minority of the population, 10-15% it looked like, seemed to be wearing masks outdoors on sidewalks. Yet, they are only recording about 10 deaths per day in a country of 60 million people.

The Italians I saw in many cities and towns have a casual, but cautious, attitude that embraces life as it comes along. They enjoy everything in the moment believing in a live-and-let-live approach that many Americans could benefit from.

Need more positive stories and updates coming out of the COVID-19 challenge? For more uplifting coverage, click here. 

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