by Calculated Risk on 3/09/2022 08:59:00 PM

Thursday:
• At 8:30 AM ET, The Consumer Price Index for February from the BLS. The consensus is for a 0.8% increase in CPI, and a 0.5% increase in core CPI.  The consensus is for CPI to be up 7.9% Year-over-year (YoY), and core CPI to be up 6.4% YoY.

• Also at 8:30 AM, The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released.  The consensus is for a decrease to 210 thousand from 215 thousand last week.

• At 12:00 PM, Q4 Flow of Funds Accounts of the United States from the Federal Reserve.

On COVID (focus on hospitalizations and deaths):

COVID Metrics
	Now	Week Ago	Goal
Percent fully Vaccinated	65.2%	---	≥70.0%1
Fully Vaccinated (millions)	216.4	---	≥2321
New Cases per Day3	37,879	55,018	≤5,0002
Hospitalized3	28,090	40,581	≤3,0002
Deaths per Day3	1,161	1,683	≤502
1 Minimum to achieve "herd immunity" (estimated between 70% and 85%). 2my goals to stop daily posts, 37-day average for Cases, Currently Hospitalized, and Deaths 🚩 Increasing 7-day average week-over-week for Cases, Hospitalized, and Deaths ✅ Goal met.

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows the daily (columns) and 7-day average (line) of deaths reported.

New cases, hospitalizations and deaths are now declining.