10 Worst State COVID-19 Death Rates, From a Leaked Government Report

COVID-19 killed about 1 in every 33,000 U.S. residents in the week ending Nov. 20, and it killed about 1 in 5,000 residents in one state, according to federal government COVID-19 tracking data. The state-level COVID-19 mortality rate for the week ending Nov. 20 ranged from from 0.1 deaths per 100,000 residents, in Hawaii, up to 19.6 deaths per 100,000 residents. In a normal year, the typical U.S. weekly death rate from all causes is about 17 deaths per 100,000 residents. A team that works for the White House Coronavirus Task Force has published the state-level and national mortality rate figures for that week in a 50-state report released Nov. 22.

Resources

• The Center for Public Integrity copy of a 50-state version of the White House Coronavirus Task Force weekly report, which was released Nov. 22, is available here.
• An article about the national COVID-19 data for that week is available here.

The task force has not been making the weekly COVID-19 tracking reports available to the public. Some states have been publishing the single-state reports for their states. The single-state reports provide rankings that show which states have the highest mortality rates and which have the lowest mortality rates. But the single-state reports do not provide the actual mortality rate figures for all 50 states. The Center for Public Integrity, a Washington-based advocacy group, has started getting and posting leaked versions of the 50-state reports. COVID-19 trackers write in the recommendations given in the Nov. 22 version of the 50-state report that "there is aggressive, rapid and expanding community spread across the country." In the recommendations for the state with the highest COVID-19 mortality rate, the COVID-19 trackers suggest that the state needs to do more to "limit additional hospital overruns and preventable mortality." The mortality data, recommendations and other figures and advice in the White House task force reports could affect what actions state and federal officials take, what the final pandemic death toll will be, and how the economy responds to the pandemic. The reports also could affect financial services product sales, and claims for life insurance, disability insurance, long-term care insurance and annuity contract death benefits. In some cases, excess mortality could reduce reserve requirements for long-term care insurance, disability insurance, individual annuity and group annuity products. For a look at the 10 states with the highest COVID-19 mortality rates in the Nov. 22 version of the 50-state report, see the slideshow above. — Read U.S. Death Gap Grows: Demographer, on ThinkAdvisor. — Connect with ThinkAdvisor Life/Health on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.