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There is good news for the US as people get ready for Memorial Day weekend. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is predicting that Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths will fall over the next four weeks. The CDC ensemble forecasts conclude that there will be a total of 596,000 to 606,000 Covid-19 deaths by June 19. As of Thursday, Covid-19 has killed at least 593,288 people and infected more than 33 million in the US, according to Johns Hopkins University. (Kallingal, 5/28)

Appearing in Virginia ahead of Memorial Day weekend, President Joe Biden is expected to tout the state's and the country's "strong progress" against the coronavirus pandemic, while encouraging more Americans to get vaccinated, according to a White House official. Nearly 130 days after he urged Americans in his inaugural speech to persevere through the "dark winter" with the coronavirus, Biden is also expected to take an optimistic and hopeful tone in a speech in Alexandria, Virginia, on Friday, the official said. (Siegel, 5/28)

The CDC has decided to focus investigations of cases in which the COVID-19 vaccines fail on people who get hospitalized or die, but critics say that's short-sighted. (Stein, 5/27)

The New York Times has been tracking virus cases at U.S. colleges and universities for nearly a year and has identified about 700,000 infections involving students and employees. Of those, more than 260,000 cases have occurred since Jan. 1. The Times has regularly surveyed more than 1,900 colleges and universities for coronavirus information for nearly a year. Altogether, the colleges reported about 60,000 cases each month between January and late April. From late April to late May, however, they reported fewer than 30,000 cases. Some of the newly identified cases may be from earlier in the pandemic and cases may be slowing in some places because spring semesters ended in early May, but the decline suggests that the overall outlook might be improving. (Wong, 5/28)

Oregon has surpassed 200,000 confirmed coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic, health officials said Thursday. The state’s death toll is 2,660. “As we head into the Memorial Day holiday weekend, this milestone is a grim reminder that while case counts are decreasing statewide in large part due to vaccination, there remains a risk of COVID-19 in Oregon, especially for those who are not yet vaccinated,” said Oregon Health Authority Director Patrick Allen. “I urge caution for Oregonians who are not yet vaccinated.” Oregon’s daily case count, hospitalizations, deaths and positivity rates have been decreasing. (Cline, 5/27)

Maryland officials said Thursday that there have been 517 more COVID-19 fatalities during the coronavirus pandemic that were not counted previously, increasing the death toll of the virus to more than 9,300 in the state. The state’s Department of Health attributed the increase to deaths caused by COVID-19 that were classified improperly by doctors, nurses and others who record deaths at hospitals, nursing homes and elsewhere. The errors weren’t caught until the department’s Vital Statistics Administration reviewed the data later and compared it with other sources of data. (Cohn, Mann and Miller, 5/27)

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont held his last regular COVID-19 briefing for the media on Thursday, a sign that he and his administration believe the state is well on its way to finally emerging from the pandemic. But Lamont said he wasn’t proclaiming “mission accomplished” after about 15 months of giving regular, televised updates. He warned there could still be some flare-ups of infections, especially with variants of the virus, in parts of the state where vaccinations have lagged such as eastern Connecticut and some urban areas. “So that’s why we are not taking our foot off the accelerator when it comes to getting everybody vaccinated,” he said. (Haigh, 5/27)

Additional cases of two variant strains of COVID-19 have been found in Mississippi, the state Health Department said Thursday. Officials said 10 additional cases of the variant that originated in South Africa have been identified in the state, bringing the total to 12. The new cases are from outbreaks in two long-term care facilities — one in Forrest County and one in Covington County. The cases were described as “breakthrough” illnesses in “fully vaccinated older individuals.” “The majority of these cases had minimal to no symptoms, however, two required hospitalizations and one person died,” the department said in a news release. (5/27)