One chronic problem with COVID-19 news reporting has always been that it tends to be very short-term --what happened over a week or two-- which encourages people to lose perspective.
Yes, some numbers (not all) are worse than last week, but how does that look if we compare it to, say, February?
Another chronic problem with COVID-19 journalism is that the same myopic focus stresses increases in "new cases" rather than what ultimately matters - how many of those cases infected high-risk people at risk of being hospitalized and especially of dying.
Previous sensational stories about the supposedly fearsome "British Variant" eventually lost their place in the headlines.
Gone and forgotten.
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/british-variant-covid-19-not-severe-feared-study-2021-04-13
So now we have the Delta Variant, which is not purported to be more deadly (unlike the British version), but simply more contagious among those who (1) do not get vaccinated and (2) also don't wear a mask in crowded indoor locations. The obvious answer is to get vaccinated or, if not, wear a mask in situations involving close contact and little ventilation.
Bottom Line: The Delta Variant is clearly a BIG problem for the world population, but the U.S. is only 4 1/4% of world population.
The graph shows an ominous rise is global death from COVID-19 in recent months (which variant is irrelevant), although deaths appear to have declined significantly in recent weeks.
It is more difficult to see a significant rise in U.S. daily deaths attributed to COVID-19 partly because of scale - they are a tiny percentage of the total. But it also remains difficult to see a rise in U.S. deaths from COVID-19 in any graph that omits the rest of the world. Why? Because, with any sense of perspective, the increase so far has been too minuscule to notice on a graph.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/coronavirus-deaths-united-states-each-day-2020-n1177936
Fearmongers will doubtless reply by predicting that deaths will "surge" in August (as they obviously did in April and December of 2020) because there is a lag between new infections and deaths. I really hope someone actually makes such a prediction, because I will be eager to update the score in another few weeks.
How can new U.S. cases now be up but deaths not? Because the overwhelming majority of those at greatest risk of death (many of them very old, very obese or both) have now been vaccinated.
And perhaps the rest of those Americans at greatest risk from COVID-19 are a non-suicidal variant of antivaxxers who have the good sense to wear masks when needed.