New coronavirus infections slowed by nearly 16% over the past week, continuing a trend of rapid improvement, Axios' Sam Baker and Andrew Witherspoon report.

The big picture: The U.S. still has a ton of coronavirus, and there's still the potential for dark days ahead. But this is progress, and the improvement is significant. If this trend keeps going, the country will be in a far better and safer position as vaccines continue to roll out.

By the numbers: Nationwide, the U.S. is averaging about 139,000 new cases per day — a 16% improvement over last week, which was a 16% improvement over the week before.

• The number of new hospitalizations was also down last week, by just over 26%.
• And deaths fell by about 6%, to an average of 3,097 deaths per day.

Between the lines: 139,000 cases and 3,000 deaths per day is still a very bad pandemic, but at least the numbers are headed in the right direction.

• The U.S. is back at about the same caseload we were experiencing shortly before Thanksgiving.
• The number of new daily cases fell over the past week in 42 states, and held steady in the remaining eight states. No state got worse — another sign that this improvement could be sustainable.

Yes, but: Experts warn that a more contagious variant of the virus is quickly becoming the dominant strain within the U.S.

• As it gains more ground, each infected person is more likely to infect others. And because the U.S. still has so many infected people, that could cause cases to spike again.
• But the best protection against another surge in cases, hospitalizations and deaths is to get cases down and keep them there — and that's what we're doing.

Scientists are working on a way to use AI to create quantitative measurements for chronic pain, Axios' Bryan Walsh reports.

Why it matters: Chronic pain is an epidemic in the U.S., but doctors can't measure discomfort as they can other vital signs. Building methods that can objectively measure pain can help ensure that the millions in need of palliative care aren't left to suffer.

What's happening: Late last month, scientists from IBM and Boston Scientific presented new research outlining a framework that uses machine learning and activity monitoring devices to capture and analyze biometric data that can correspond to the perception of pain.

• The researchers are using biomarkers collected in clinical studies involving patients undergoing spinal cord stimulation, including information on movement collected from smartwatches, sleep data, heart rate levels and even voice recordings.
• AI is being employed to sift through the results in the hopes of identifying patterns that might enable doctors to "read" a patient's pain levels through that more granular data.

Background: According to one estimate, more than 100 million Americans struggle with chronic pain, at an annual cost of as much as $635 billion in painkillers and lost productivity.

• Yet doctors' methods for pain measurement remain rudimentary, like asking patients to report their pain on a scale of 1 to 10, or even just pointing to cartoon faces with different emotions.

The number of emergency-room visits for mental health conditions, suicide attempts, drug overdoses, intimate partner violence and child abuse and neglect were higher during the pandemic than the same period in 2019, a JAMA report out Wednesday shows.

The big picture: Early studies have indicated that isolation and economic stress fueled these serious outcomes, Axios' Marisa Fernandez writes.

A third of U.S. adults say they don't plan to get their children vaccinated against the coronavirus, and only about 4 in 10 say they do, according to recent polling by Verywell Health.

Why it matters: There isn't currently a vaccine available for children, but kids will eventually be an important component of reaching widespread immunity throughout the population.

• Children themselves generally aren't at high risk of severe coronavirus infections.

Where it stands: Anthony Fauci, the government's top infectious disease official, said last week that he hopes we'll be able to start vaccinating children in the "late spring and early summer," per AP.

Go deeper: Read the full polling results.

The Biden administration would really prefer that people "lay low" on Super Bowl Sunday. "You don't want parties with people that you haven’t had much contact with," Fauci told NBC's "Today" show on Wednesday.

The first federally organized mass coronavirus vaccination sites are expected to open in Oakland and Los Angeles, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday.

Biden declared Wednesday that a major disaster exists for the Navajo Nation over COVID-19 and ordered more federal assistance to fight the pandemic at the nation's largest Native American reservation.

Nearly 7 in 10 Americans in a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday said they support President Biden's $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan.

The city of San Francisco filed a lawsuit against its own school district on Wednesday to try to reopen schools as the coronavirus pandemic persists, City Attorney Dennis Herrera announced.