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The U.S. has hit a plateau in coronavirus cases and deaths that signal a "potential shift in the trajectory of the pandemic," the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned states on Monday not to loosen restrictions and get in front of the progress the country has made since it hit a monumental 300,000 cases a day in January, the worst point of the pandemic so far. Over the last week, the daily number of cases and deaths, on average, has risen by about 2% compared to the week prior, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said during a White House press briefing, to about 67,000 cases per day and 2,000 American lives lost to the virus each day. It's nearly a third of what the U.S. was seeing during its holiday surge, but still no better than what the U.S. saw during the summer peak. (Haslett, 3/1)

The positive signs come with caveats. Though the national statistics have improved drastically since January, they have plateaued in the last week or so, and the United States is still reporting more than 65,000 new cases a day on average — comparable to the peak of last summer’s surge, according to a New York Times database. The country is still averaging about 2,000 deaths per day, though deaths are a lagging indicator because it can take weeks for patients to die. (3/2)

The World Health Organization said Monday that it is unlikely that the coronavirus will no longer be an issue by the end of the year and one official said despite advances, the virus is "very much in control." Dr. Michael Ryan, the head of the WHO’s emergency services arm, told a press conference in Geneva that he believes it is "unrealistic, to think that we’re going to finish with this virus by the year." (DeMarche, 3/2)

A senior World Health Organization official said Monday it was “premature” and “unrealistic” to think the pandemic might be stopped by the end of the year, but that the recent arrival of effective vaccines could at least help dramatically reduce hospitalizations and death. The world’s singular focus right now should be to keep transmission of COVID-19 as low as possible, said Dr. Michael Ryan, director of WHO’s emergencies program. “If we’re smart, we can finish with the hospitalizations and the deaths and the tragedy associated with this pandemic” by the end of the year, he said at media briefing. (Cheng and Keaten, 3/1)

Despite the progress, Covid-19 numbers in the US are still alarmingly high. And they could quickly climb even higher if Americans let up now, one expert told CNN on Monday. "We should not ease up, allow indoor dining, big groups ... getting rid of mask mandates. We have to hold on for another two or three months in this condition," said Dr. Zeke Emanuel, who was a health adviser for the Obama White House and was a member of the Biden Transition Covid-19 Advisory Board. "We're still having on average 2,000 deaths a day. We cannot become inured to that." (Maxouris, 3/2)

States are easing social distancing rules but it’s “too soon” to roll back Covid restrictions, Dr. Atul Gawande warned on CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith.” “We are currently at levels of cases that are still above the highest level of our last surge, so we haven’t even come down below the surge last summer,” said the surgeon and professor at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. (DeCiccio, 3/1)

The global number of new coronavirus cases rose for the first time in nearly two months, the World Health Organization said Monday, blaming the surge in infections on circulating variants and premature efforts to lift public health restrictions. It would be “unrealistic” to think that the virus will be over by the end of this year, warned WHO’s head of the emergency program, Michael Ryan. (Cunningham, 3/2)

As the state nears one year since the first reported COVID-19 case, Georgia hit another grim milestone for the younger population. The Georgia Department of Public Health is reporting 100 deaths in the 18-29 age bracket since the pandemic began. The state said there have been 182,207 reported cases in that age group. (Braverman, 3/1)