Looking at these COVID Tracking Project graphs from left to right. The first one says testing has really sped-up lately and the second shows that, by no coincidence, more testing revealed more positive cases (including many young workers and students who would not previously have been tested).
The third graph shows a relatively small uptick in the number of people hospitalized, ostensibly for symptoms of COVID-19. The last graph shows that deaths peaked above 2000 a day in mid-April with another wave briefly topping 1000 at the end of July, with deaths averaging 500-700 since then with only a brief uptick lately.
When TV and newspaper reports
- harp on recent cases without mentioning tests, and
- describe fairly small local increases in hospitalizations as national and huge. or
- talk only about adding-up all cumulative deaths since January rather than the reasonably low level of recent deaths, they are doing a really disgraceful job.