COVID-19 Trackers' Map Shows Mountain State Embers

Slideshow May 18, 2020 at 02:28 PM
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The new government COVID-19 tracking map shows that most of the country seems to be moving in the right direction, but that the outbreak might be flaring up in Wisconsin, and in the Mountain States. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has put numbers, maps and charts telling the outbreak story in its latest weekly COVIDView newsletter.

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Because testing for any new disease is often difficult, and because testing for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes COVID-19, has been especially difficult, the CDC includes data on indicators such as total deaths as well as data on deaths officially linked to COVID-19. The CDC also provides several types of early warning sign numbers, including data on how many "influenza-like illness" patients primary care doctors, urgent care centers and hospital emergency rooms are seeing. Better access to SARS-Cov-2 testing may change the numbers, but, up till now, about 6% of confirmed COVID-19 cases have ended in death, according to OurWorldinData.org. Many people who die from COVID-19 spend weeks in the hospital before they die. That means the number of new cases cropping up in a state may indicate how many people will be dying from COVID-19 within the next few weeks. The CDC depends on states to report complete, accurate data to develop its COVID-19 tracking report. In spite of public health officials' need for good outbreak data, some states have been slow to send in their data. In some places, critics of state and local officials have accused officials of distorting outbreak-related data for political reasons. The data the CDC is reporting suggests activity is at very low or minimal levels, or falling toward minimal levels, in most of the country. One concern is that COVID-19 and COVID-19-like cases have started to crop up in Montana and Mexico. Activity appears to be increasingly rapidly in Idaho. Activity was already at a moderate level in Wisconsin and appears to have increased one notch. We've posted activity maps in the slideshow above. We've reported state data, and data for New York City, which reports its data as if it were a state, in tables below. .

Deaths by State* (Week ending May 2)

State COVID Deaths Pneumonia Deaths Total Deaths Percent of Expected Deaths
Alabama 41 56 800 81%
Alaska 0 0 41 46%
Arizona 52 76 1,073 92%
Arkansas NA 33 465 77%
California 210 370 4,186 82%
Colorado 110 84 814 110%
Connecticut NA NA NA 0%
Delaware 42 19 134 85%
District of Columbia 19 22 83 69%
Florida 207 316 3,863 97%
Georgia 101 95 1,091 66%
Hawaii NA 14 195 90%
Idaho NA 11 228 87%
Illinois 366 309 2,249 111%
Indiana 170 157 1,149 92%
Iowa 47 29 516 87%
Kansas 15 24 458 94%
Kentucky 12 35 522 58%
Louisiana 95 71 594 70%
Maine NA 13 272 102%
Maryland 278 154 1,185 124%
Massachusetts 802 361 1,901 167%
Michigan 342 254 2,079 114%
Minnesota 129 79 895 106%
Mississippi 68 60 588 100%
Missouri 61 60 902 73%
Montana NA NA 49 26%
Nebraska 12 20 231 72%
Nevada 24 46 407 83%
New Hampshire 30 19 257 109%
New Jersey 401 286 1,527 109%
New Mexico 34 22 272 77%
New York 786 502 2,644 139%
New York City 988 451 1,985 197%
North Carolina NA 0 NA 0%
North Dakota NA NA 86 62%
Ohio 114 95 1,484 64%
Oklahoma 15 28 349 46%
Oregon 10 17 439 65%
Pennsylvania 410 243 2,558 102%
Rhode Island 26 14 78 35%
South Carolina 23 48 759 83%
South Dakota 10 NA 96 58%
Tennessee 20 79 1,211 87%
Texas 69 200 2,710 71%
Utah 10 12 367 103%
Vermont NA NA 96 92%
Virginia 181 131 1,406 109%
Washington 45 60 689 63%
West Virginia 10 NA 37 8%
Wisconsin 54 48 996 99%
Wyoming 0 NA 52 60%
Puerto Rico 11 23 158 29%
United States 6,464 5,057 47,070 87%
"NA" here means that a state either failed to report data, or that the number of cases reported was between 1 and 9 and was left out for privacy reasons. States with entries in italics have reported deaths below 60% of the expected figure and appear to have submitted incomplete data, or no data.
Soure: CDC, Provisional Death Counts for Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)