After 2 months of record-setting case counts, hospitalizations, and deaths, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today the United States has finally returned to pre-Thanksgiving levels of COVID-19 transmission."We are now averaging 144,000 cases per day, and though deaths continue to increase, a recent decline in hospitalizations gives us hope those will also soon fall," said Rochelle Walensky, MD, during today's White House coronavirus press briefing.Persistent high case numbers prompt Super Bowl party cautionThe US reported 110,679 new COVID-19 cases yesterday, and 3,389 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 tracker.