New COVID-19 Data for All 50 States, and the District of Columbia
The number of patients showing up at U.S. doctors' offices with illnesses that look like COVID-19 is falling, but the outbreak is still killing people at epidemic levels. For the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one sign that a disease outbreak may be an epidemic is if the disease accounts for more than about 6% of all U.S. deaths in a given week. Early U.S. death counts for the week ending May 16 show that COVID-19, and illnesses that often resemble COVID-19, caused about 13% of the deaths reported to the CDC. That outbreak mortality intensity indicator was over 6% in 21 states. In recent days, some analysts have suggested that COVID-19 may be hitting harder in high-population states led by Democrats than in more spread out states led by Republicans, but five of the states that rank in the top 10 in terms of outbreak mortality intensity — Iowa, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Maryland and Massachusetts — have Republican governors.
Resources
- The CDC's weekly COVID-19 report is available here.
- The CDC's provisional COVID-19 mortality data table is available here.
- An overview article about the weekly COVID-19 report for the previous week is available here.
A team at the National Center for Health Statistics, an arm of the CDC, has reported COVID-19 outbreak tracking data in the CDC's latest COVIDView report. The report was released Friday — May 22 — and covers deaths and other events that happened during the week ending May 16. The COVIDView team bases the tables and charts in the report on data from state public health agencies and other public health agencies and programs. Some agencies send the CDC their numbers faster than others do. For the week ending May 16, for example, the total number of deaths reported for that week as of May 22 was just 53% of the "expected number of deaths," or the average number of deaths during the comparable weeks in 2017, 2018 and 2019. The COVIDView team is also wrestling with weaknesses in COVID-19 diagnostic testing efforts. The COVIDView reports are similar to the CDC's weekly influenza tracking reports. To get around flu testing gaps, the CDC reports data on confirmed cases of COVID-19 alongside data on similar conditions, such as pneumonia, flu and flu-like illnesses. The CDC also reports total death counts, in addition data on deaths officially attributed to COVID-19, flu and pneumonia. The COVIDView numbers for May 2 are the latest numbers that appear to be reasonably complete. As of May 22, the CDC had received reports of 56,606 deaths for the week ending May 2.
- The total number of deaths was 8% higher than the expected number.
- 9,359 of the people who died had laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19.
- A total of 12,244 of the people who died, or 22% of all of the people who died, had laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 or COVID-19-like illnesses.
The CDC keeps updating its numbers as new data comes in, and some key indicators can change dramatically over the course of a month. On April 24, for example, the CDC published its first version of the COVID-19 mortality intensity figure for the week ending April 18: The CDC reported that 18.6% of all people who died that week had died from COVID-19 or similar-looking conditions. States that were slower to send in their data had higher COVID-19 mortality intensity than the early filers. The CDC has revised the indicator almost every week. In the latest report, the CDC says 27% of all of the people died during the week ending April 18 died of COVID-19 or similarly conditions. For the ending April 11, the COVIDView mortality intensity indicator has increased from 18.8%, in the April 17 report, to 26.4%, in the report that came out Friday. .
Deaths by State (Week ending May 2) | ||||||
| State | COVID-19 Deaths | Pneumonia Deaths | Pneumonia, Influenza, or COVID-19 Deaths | Total Deaths* | Percent of Expected Deaths | Percent of Deaths Caused by COVID-19 and Look-Alikes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | 61 | 70 | 116 | 951 | 96% | 12% |
| Alaska | 0 | NA | NA | 56 | 63% | NA |
| Arizona | 88 | 112 | 161 | 1,303 | 112% | 12% |
| Arkansas | 17 | 40 | 54 | 582 | 97% | 9% |
| California | 383 | 488 | 675 | 5,018 | 99% | 13% |
| Colorado | 155 | 113 | 195 | 932 | 126% | 21% |
| Connecticut | NA | NA | NA | NA | 0% | NA |
| Delaware | 57 | 25 | 64 | 169 | 105% | 38% |
| District of Columbia | 38 | 42 | 42 | 133 | 121% | 32% |
| Florida | 267 | 373 | 498 | 4,214 | 109% | 12% |
| Georgia | 165 | 146 | 221 | 1,411 | 87% | 16% |
| Hawaii | NA | 18 | 19 | 215 | 100% | 9% |
| Idaho | NA | 13 | 15 | 242 | 100% | 6% |
| Illinois | 578 | 440 | 723 | 2,656 | 130% | 27% |
| Indiana | 236 | 189 | 331 | 1,311 | 108% | 25% |
| Iowa | 56 | 36 | 82 | 578 | 99% | 14% |
| Kansas | 18 | 29 | 39 | 489 | 102% | 8% |
| Kentucky | 31 | 54 | 79 | 705 | 78% | 11% |
| Louisiana | 158 | 108 | 190 | 783 | 95% | 24% |
| Maine | NA | 13 | 19 | 273 | 98% | 7% |
| Maryland | 361 | 192 | 428 | 1,386 | 143% | 31% |
| Massachusetts | 937 | 429 | 1,028 | 2,087 | 183% | 49% |
| Michigan | 419 | 294 | 519 | 2,220 | 124% | 23% |
| Minnesota | 137 | 88 | 189 | 952 | 117% | 20% |
| Mississippi | 85 | 71 | 118 | 641 | 113% | 18% |
| Missouri | 90 | 78 | 139 | 1,101 | 90% | 13% |
| Montana | NA | NA | 11 | 151 | 83% | 7% |
| Nebraska | 16 | 23 | 33 | 312 | 97% | 11% |
| Nevada | 40 | 59 | 71 | 476 | 97% | 15% |
| New Hampshire | 32 | 19 | 43 | 259 | 117% | 17% |
| New Jersey | 1,048 | 641 | 1,162 | 2,535 | 191% | 46% |
| New Mexico | 49 | 30 | 56 | 318 | 89% | 18% |
| New York | 877 | 547 | 1,036 | 2,788 | 150% | 37% |
| New York City | 1,237 | 583 | 1,318 | 2,301 | 240% | 57% |
| North Carolina | NA | NA | NA | NA | 1% | NA |
| North Dakota | NA | NA | 11 | 93 | 75% | 12% |
| Ohio | 205 | 169 | 293 | 2,129 | 95% | 14% |
| Oklahoma | 23 | 44 | 57 | 482 | 66% | 12% |
| Oregon | 13 | 20 | 29 | 536 | 82% | 5% |
| Pennsylvania | 784 | 395 | 919 | 3,226 | 132% | 28% |
| Rhode Island | 57 | 30 | 67 | 158 | 79% | 42% |
| South Carolina | 58 | 77 | 117 | 977 | 111% | 12% |
| South Dakota | 16 | 13 | 22 | 137 | 101% | 16% |
| Tennessee | 27 | 91 | 109 | 1,356 | 94% | 8% |
| Texas | 149 | 307 | 394 | 3,676 | 104% | 11% |
| Utah | 11 | 12 | 22 | 376 | 113% | 6% |
| Vermont | NA | NA | NA | 114 | 105% | NA |
| Virginia | 221 | 151 | 282 | 1,521 | 122% | 19% |
| Washington | 50 | 68 | 93 | 952 | 104% | 10% |
| West Virginia | 13 | 14 | 22 | 151 | 59% | 15% |
| Wisconsin | 64 | 53 | 111 | 1,106 | 104% | 10% |
| Wyoming | 0 | NA | NA | 59 | 117% | NA |
| Puerto Rico | 13 | 30 | 41 | 224 | 74% | 18% |
| United States | 9,359 | 6,839 | 12,244 | 56,606 | 108% | 22% |
| * Total deaths is less than or equal to the sum of COVID-19 deaths and pneumonia deaths, because some people are classified as dying from both COVID-19 and pneumonia. About 50 people died in the week ending May 2 of confirmed cases of flu. "NA" here means that a state failed to report death data for the week ending May 2, or that it reported 2 to 9 deaths of a particular type, and the CDC left that number out of the data in an effort to protect people's privacy. | ||||||
| Source: The CDC's COVIDView newsletter. | ||||||
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