5 States Where COVID-19 Hospitalizations Are Surging
Some U.S. states look as if they might be heading into a severe new wave of COVID-19. Federal government charts illustrating trends in new case counts and hospitalization rates in those states are starting to head straight up. Hospitalization rates may be a better indicator of outbreak severity than new case counts, because ups and downs in the number of people diagnosed with COVID-19 might reflect changes in how easy and cheap it is for people to get tested, rather than infection rates. Hospitals, in contrast, are likely to admit people with COVID-19 only when those people are seriously ill. The U.S. hospitalization rate for people with confirmed cases of COVID-19 has started to climb rapidly, from record lows in June. U.S. hospitals reported 30,481 hospitalizations of people with COVID-19 for the seven-day period ending July 24. That was up 33% from the total for the week ending July 17, and the total for the week ending July 17 was up 35% from the total for the week ending July 10. Those numbers mean that the hospitalization rate for the week ending July 24 was about 80% higher than the rate for the week ending July 10. Michael Neidorff, the CEO of Centene, a major health insurer, told securities analysts Tuesday in a conference call the company held to go over second-quarter earnings that he believes the United States is facing a "pandemic of the unvaccinated." COVID-19 trackers are wondering if, given how long new COVID-19 infections take to lead to visits to doctors and how slow many states are to report their numbers to the federal government, the real trends are worse. For health insurers, a severe new wave of cases could lead to a strange situation: sharp decreases in patients' ability to get routine preventive and sick care offsetting costs related to COVID-19. For life insurers, a new wave could lead to continuing uncertainty about the ultimate effects of the pandemic on death benefits totals.
Goodbye, June
The United States looked last month as if it had gotten the COVID-19 pandemic well under control. The country had vaccinated about 79% of people ages 65 and older, 59% of adults ages 18 and older, and 48.6% of all residents against COVID-19. Some combination of vaccines, an increase in natural immunity, weather changes and changes in the virus that causes COVID-19 caused the number of new cases recorded each week, per 100,000 U.S. residents, to plummet to just 34. That new case count was down from a peak of 536 in January. The June new case count was also down from the previous low of 60 per 100,000 people, which was recorded in May 2020, when the first wave of the pandemic was ebbing and shortages of supplies limited patient access to testing. This past June, falling case counts translated into falling hospitalization rates. Hospitals reported just 2.5 hospitalizations of patients with confirmed cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 U.S. residents. That was the lowest rate recorded since the pandemic began, down from 15.8 hospitalizations per 100,000 people in January.
Hello, August?
The people typically covered by life insurance are working people ages 18 to 64. The effects of the new COVID-19 wave on life insurers could depend on the percentage of people in that age group who are vaccinated, how well those people follow public officials' safety advice, and the nature of the COVID-19 variants infected working-age people. In the week ending July 24, about 51% of the people admitted to U.S. hospitals with confirmed cases of COVID-19 were ages 18 to 59, up from 50% the week before. Another clue is what the numbers look like at the state level. The number of COVID-19 hospitalizations, for the last seven days, per 100,000 state residents ranges from a low of one in Vermont to 33 in another state, with a median of about 6, in one state. For a look at the five states with the worst COVID-19 hospitalization rates, see the slideshow above. For data for all 50 states and the District of Columbia, see the table below.
A U.S. COVID-19 Pandemic Snapshot (for the week ending July 24) | |||||||||
| State | Population | People who are fully vaccinated as % of total population | Cases per 100,000 people, last 7 days | Cases, % change from previous week | Confirmed COVID-19 admissions, last 7 days | Confirmed COVID-19 admissions per 100,000 people, last 7 days | Confirmed COVID-19 admissions, % change from previous week | Working age admissions as a percentage of all admissions | Deaths per 100,000 people, last 7 days |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | 4,903,185 | 34% | 227 | 167% | 1,080 | 22 | 115% | 44% | 0.8 |
| Alaska | 731,545 | 45% | 138 | 19% | 70 | 10 | 52% | 47% | 0.4 |
| Arizona | 7,278,717 | 45% | 123 | 31% | 676 | 9 | 8% | 52% | 0.7 |
| Arkansas | 3,017,804 | 36% | 367 | 48% | 808 | 27 | 15% | 51% | 1.7 |
| California | 39,512,223 | 52% | 46 | -31% | 2,734 | 7 | 43% | 62% | 0.2 |
| Colorado | 5,758,736 | 54% | 42 | -14% | 339 | 6 | 5% | 53% | 0.5 |
| Connecticut | 3,565,287 | 63% | 31 | 17% | 83 | 2 | 24% | 52% | 0.1 |
| Delaware | 973,764 | 52% | 42 | 31% | 24 | 2 | 33% | 58% | 0.1 |
| District of Columbia | 705,749 | 54% | 32 | -7% | 21 | 3 | -16% | 71% | 0 |
| Florida | 21,477,737 | 49% | 266 | 11% | 7,072 | 33 | 55% | 52% | 1.2 |
| Georgia | 10,617,423 | 38% | 90 | 26% | 1,452 | 14 | 64% | 48% | 0.5 |
| Hawaii | 1,415,872 | 53% | 91 | 85% | 42 | 3 | 27% | 45% | 0.4 |
| Idaho | 1,787,065 | 37% | 67 | 13% | 103 | 6 | 16% | 35% | 0.6 |
| Illinois | 12,671,821 | 48% | 48 | 16% | 616 | 5 | 30% | 49% | 0.3 |
| Indiana | 6,732,219 | 44% | 51 | 0% | 423 | 6 | 29% | 46% | 0 |
| Iowa | 3,155,070 | 49% | 40 | 6% | 154 | 5 | 57% | 54% | 0.4 |
| Kansas | 2,913,314 | 45% | 115 | 10% | 300 | 10 | 2% | 47% | 1.4 |
| Kentucky | 4,467,673 | 45% | 82 | 10% | 895 | 20 | 5% | 22% | 0.2 |
| Louisiana | 4,648,794 | 37% | 306 | 51% | 1,255 | 27 | 81% | 53% | 1.4 |
| Maine | 1,344,212 | 63% | 26 | 18% | 41 | 3 | -61% | 22% | 1.1 |
| Maryland | 6,045,680 | 58% | 29 | 73% | 139 | 2 | 11% | 58% | 0.4 |
| Massachusetts | 6,892,503 | 64% | 35 | 38% | 124 | 2 | 25% | 54% | 0.3 |
| Michigan | 9,986,857 | 49% | 24 | 50% | 275 | 3 | 17% | 49% | 0.3 |
| Minnesota | 5,639,632 | 54% | 30 | 33% | 128 | 2 | 10% | 52% | 0.2 |
| Mississippi | 2,976,149 | 34% | 141 | 1% | 422 | 14 | 19% | 56% | 0.9 |
| Missouri | 6,137,428 | 41% | 274 | 16% | 1,271 | 21 | 15% | 45% | 1.4 |
| Montana | 1,068,778 | 44% | 51 | 29% | 99 | 9 | 1% | 43% | 0.4 |
| Nebraska | 1,934,408 | 49% | 33 | -19% | 110 | 6 | 20% | 31% | 0.3 |
| Nevada | 3,080,156 | 44% | 148 | -14% | 753 | 24 | 6% | 57% | 1.9 |
| New Hampshire | 1,359,711 | 58% | 15 | 5% | 31 | 2 | 63% | 48% | 0.3 |
| New Jersey | 8,882,190 | 58% | 54 | 67% | 346 | 4 | 36% | 48% | 0.4 |
| New Mexico | 2,096,829 | 57% | 50 | 6% | 131 | 6 | 49% | 52% | 0.5 |
| New York | 19,453,561 | 57% | 56 | 74% | 590 | 3 | 36% | 47% | 0.2 |
| North Carolina | 10,488,084 | 44% | 68 | 39% | 718 | 7 | 58% | 53% | 0.4 |
| North Dakota | 762,062 | 40% | 29 | 45% | 20 | 3 | 54% | 40% | 0.1 |
| Ohio | 11,689,100 | 46% | 41 | 67% | 435 | 4 | 3% | 52% | 0.3 |
| Oklahoma | 3,956,971 | 40% | 149 | 23% | 622 | 16 | 19% | 45% | 0.5 |
| Oregon | 4,217,737 | 56% | 56 | 22% | 154 | 4 | 26% | 50% | 0.3 |
| Pennsylvania | 12,801,989 | 52% | 28 | 51% | 332 | 3 | 37% | 37% | 0.3 |
| Rhode Island | 1,059,361 | 61% | 35 | 21% | 14 | 1 | 75% | 64% | 0.2 |
| South Carolina | 5,148,714 | 40% | 73 | 6% | 332 | 6 | 34% | 52% | 1 |
| South Dakota | 884,659 | 47% | 9 | -54% | 28 | 3 | -32% | 50% | 0.1 |
| Tennessee | 6,829,174 | 39% | 112 | 59% | 557 | 8 | 58% | 47% | 0.4 |
| Texas | 28,995,881 | 43% | 120 | 58% | 3,287 | 11 | 11% | 56% | 0.7 |
| Utah | 3,205,958 | 44% | 86 | -28% | 272 | 8 | -10% | 61% | 0.3 |
| Vermont | 623,989 | 67% | 13 | -6% | 4 | 1 | 100% | 50% | 0.2 |
| Virginia | 8,535,519 | 54% | 39 | 6% | 299 | 4 | 32% | 49% | 0.3 |
| Washington | 7,614,893 | 57% | 69 | 10% | 321 | 4 | 12% | 45% | 0.5 |
| West Virginia | 1,792,147 | 39% | 34 | 16% | 65 | 4 | 10% | 32% | 0.9 |
| Wisconsin | 5,822,434 | 52% | 34 | 54% | 249 | 4 | 59% | 44% | 0.5 |
| Wyoming | 578,759 | 36% | 105 | 7% | 108 | 19 | 38% | 43% | 1 |
| NATIONAL* | 173,333,693 | 48% | 4,270 | 18% | 29,882 | 6 | 26% | 40% | |
| Source: White House COVID-19 Team, Joint Coordination Cell, Data Strategy and Execution Workgroup, Community Profile Report. * The figures for percentage changes and number of cases per 100,000 people are medians. The other figures are totals. | |||||||||
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