Hospital admissions for COVID-19 patients in the United States are declining for the first time since late June, suggesting the latest surge has peaked. The seven-day average of new daily hospitalizations with confirmed COVID-19 dropped 2.4 percent from a week earlier to about 12,280—the first such drop since around June 27, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It comes as fewer hospitalizations are being reported in Florida, Texas, and other Southern states, the agency said. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) COVID-19 tracker shows that the seven-day average for both deaths and cases appears to be leveling out. Previous surges of cases—including in the spring of 2020, in late July and early August of 2020, and January 2021—always leveled out and then dropped. During prior surges, the COVID-19 death rate appeared to be higher, according to the CDC’s data. For example, on Jan. 13 of …