The CDC changed the metrics it uses to judge risk assessment for COVID-19. I have posted a map daily on this site created by COVID Act Now and follow each states progress as it ticks up from yellow, which is a low risk, up to orange, and then red, which is very high risk.
In January of this year every state was a deep blood red. Slowly cases dropped and states switched back to orange then yellow, but none ever returned to the lowest state which is green. Overnight the map switched from a collection of yellow states and states that had ticked up to higher levels of risk in the North East to a map of overall green with a few counties marked yellow. The visual assessment is that overnight the pandemic ended.
COVID Act Now is the site I have followed for this daily risk assessment. They launched the site when there was no standardized government COVID risk framework, no broadly accessible testing or vaccines, and before there were incredibly transmissible variants like Stealth Omicron.
The CDC updated their COVID framework to capture what they call “COVID-19 Community Levels.” These changes reflect the decreased risk of severe illness and death due to vaccines. COVID Act Now worked towards integrating these CDC metrics into their map. Their former “U.S. COVID Risk Level” was replaced with a “COVID Community Level” that aligns with the CDC’s Community Levels. It takes into account the same three metrics that are part of the CDC’s framework, and grades them on a three-color scale to classify COVID Community Level as low, medium, or high for every state, county, and metro in the U.S. The end result was a sudden vast swath of green washing over the map overnight. It seems like the CDC by changing the metrics is green washing the pandemic.