Johns Hopkins University data reported by the Wall Street Journal last Monday indicated that 34 states had higher

seven-day averages for new COVID-19 cases than they did before Thanksgiving.

Public health officials across the country, understandably, are feeling uneasy during this lead-up to Christmas and New Year’s.

“The U.S. seven-day average for new cases is about 119,000 a day, according to Johns Hopkins,” the Journal reported, “up from a recent low near 71,000 in late October, when surges triggered by the delta variant slowed in the South before starting to hit hard in northern states.”

According to the Journal, the highest new-case rates are in some of the northernmost states, recently led by New Hampshire at 653 cases per 100,000 people.

The delta variant overwhelmingly remains the main cause of new cases, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, the number of cases from the new omicron variant continue to grow across the United States, causing a high rate of concern among health officials that it might someday soon become the new-case leader.

With Christmas a week away, health officials are deeply worried, and continuing to urge people to get vaccinated, including, for those who have received their initial shots, to get the recommended booster shot.

The seriousness of the situation that Pennsylvania officials fear is punctuated by the return of COVID-19 drive-thru testing in some counties, including one testing opportunity currently underway at the Blair County Convention Center, through Monday, with another drive-thru testing opportunity at the same site Jan. 3-7.

But while knowledge of what is happening now on the COVID-19 front is of utmost importance, residents of this state also should be provided a detailed report by state officials of all that transpired on that front in 2021, from Jan. 1 through Dec. 31. It is reasonable to believe such a report could be compiled and made available by March 31, 2022.

The report should include the total number of new cases in 2021, county by county, and the total number of deaths and vaccinations for the year. It also should provide, as closely as possible, the number of deaths involving unvaccinated people and the number of victims who received one or more vaccine doses but still contracted the virus and succumbed to it.

In addition, it should provide final statistics for the year on hospitalizations and COVID-19 ICU admissions.

People should draw their own conclusions based on the data in the report.

It should be a report that state residents can use toward making personal decisions regarding their responses to the pandemic in the future. There can be no guarantee that the omicron variant will be the pandemic’s last variant.

The report on COVID-19 cases and vaccinations in last Tuesday’s Mirror indicated 66 new cases in Blair County, 148 in Cambria County, 28 in Bedford County and 26 in Huntingdon County. The Mirror’s Aug. 26 virus report showed 21 in Blair, 68 in Cambria, three in Bedford and 17 in Huntingdon; the July 2 report listed one new Blair case, none in Cambria, two in Bedford and six in Huntingdon.

Unfortunately, new COVID-19 statistics seem destined to be a major topic throughout much or all of 2022.