US COVID-19 death rates trends below 500 while employers added 559K new jobs

The average daily Covid-19 deaths have continued to trend downwards and are at their lowest point since March of last year, according to The Wall Street Journal.

This is a clear indication that increased vaccination has worked to stem the spread of Covid-19. With wider vaccine rollouts and easing of lockdown restrictions, the U.S. has seen a pickup in economic activity. Businesses are hiring employees at a faster rate. U.S. employers added 559,000 jobs in May, up from the 278,000 jobs that were added in April.

Covid-19 deaths fall to their lowest level since March last year

The seven-day average for daily reported deaths fell to 432 on Thursday, its lowest level since the Covid-cases and deaths started to surge in the first half of last year.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 298 million vaccine doses have been administered so far in the U.S. with 41% of the total population fully vaccinated while 51% of the people have received at least one dose. For the most vulnerable section, those aged 65 years or older, the figure of fully vaccinated stands at 75%.

Andrew Brouwer, an assistant research scientist in epidemiology at the University of Michigan, said the following on the fall in death rates:

Hiring is slowly gathering pace in the U.S.

As the lockdown measures are being lifted across the U.S., businesses are hiring more and more people as indicated by the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The unemployment rate fell to 5.8% in May, an improvement from the reported 6.1% figure for the month of April. The economy added 559,000 new jobs last month, up from 278,000 in April. 9.3 million people are available to work but still unemployed and employment is still down by about 7.6 million jobs from the pre-pandemic levels.

However, the job gains have been slower than anticipated. Discussing the May numbers, Matthew Luzzetti, chief U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank, said:

U.S. markets were up slightly after the release of the report earlier today with S&P 500 up 0.7%, Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0.4% and Nasdaq Composite Index up 1.4%.