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Short summary is that cases are picking up as more than half of the states saw a weekly increase. Right now, the rate of change is still slow but we do seem to have hit an inflection point and would expect the upward trend to continue.
For the week that ended on November 7th, there were 505,518 newly reported cases which was up less than 1% from the 501,347 we saw the week before. Testing has continued to drop but the percentage of positive results has gone up. Would expect to see a rebound in testing as cases climb.
We start as always in the Northeast. All but New Jersey saw an increase in cases last week although the increase was less than 2% in New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island. The biggest increases were in New Hampshire and Vermont. If I look at both the weekly and monthly change in cases, almost all of the states rank in the bottom half. In terms of actual cases, Connecticut still ranks near the top while New Hampshire ranks near the bottom.
Kind of the same story we’ve had but a little more separation between Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire and the rest of the region. I created a slightly new ranking to incorporate both weekly and monthly change and the states fall in this order: Connecticut (9), New Jersey (19), Rhode Island (22), New York (28), Massachusetts (29), Pennsylvania (36), Maine (39), Vermont (49) and New Hampshire (51).
Further down the Atlantic Coast, the picture is a little better as all states showed a drop in cases over the week. And, outside of Delaware, the rest rank in the top half in terms of cases per million. So generally low case rates and cases still falling. In order, you have Maryland (10), DC (12), North Carolina (14), Virginia (15) and Delaware (20).
Now we have the first region where the good news has been reversed. All states saw increases in cases last week breaking down trends in most places. Outside of Michigan, they all remain at levels lower than they were a month ago. Illinois is the only state to rank in the top half in terms of number of cases. But all rank in the bottom half of my scale – Indiana (31), Ohio (33), Illinois (34), Wisconsin (42) and Michigan (48).
Cases continue to fall but slower in Kentucky and Tennessee as they approach minimums. The three still rank in the top half – Tennessee (11), Kentucky (21) and West Virginia (24).
Alabama had the biggest drop last week but that is because they had a data dump on one day that skewed their totals for the previous week. Cases did continue to drop and all have low numbers of cases so you still have the best region in the US right here. In terms of rankings, it is Georgia (2), Mississippi (4), Florida (5), South Carolina (6) and Alabama (7).
Another region where we seem to have broken the down trends. We haven’t yet seen real explosive growth here as most are close to where they were a month ago. But all rank high in terms of number of cases per million and four rank in the bottom ten. The full list is Nebraska (27), Iowa (40), North Dakota (43), South Dakota (45) and Minnesota (46).
Cases in Louisiana trended up last week but the number of cases still remains low. Kansas looks more like Nebraska than the rest of the region which doesn’t look quite as positive as it did a few weeks ago as cases have mostly stopped falling. The states rank as follows – Texas (5), Louisiana (6), Arkansas (12), Oklahoma (16), Missouri (19) and Kansas (30).
The week was a bit odd in the Rockies as the more northern states saw cases fall while the more southern ones saw cases rise so the whole region got closer together. Case numbers remain high with five of the states being among the highest ten in the country. But the declining case rates did improve some of the rankings so the states fall in this order – Idaho (18), Montana (30), Wyoming (35), Utah (38), Colorado (47) and New Mexico (50).
Hawaii is the best in terms of cases and continued to see drops. Nevada had a big increase but cases were up in Arizona and stopped falling in California. So other than Hawaii, this region doesn’t look as positive as it did a few weeks ago. The states rank as follows – Hawaii (1), California (23), Nevada (41) and Arizona (44).
Cases actually dropped in all three states including Alaska which continues to come down from its very high number although it still has the highest number of cases per million in the country. But when cases are falling here and not in other places, it improves the rankings and you get Washington (17), Oregon (26) and Alaska (37).
To recap, the top ten in my admittedly arbitrary ranking that attempts to combine the number of cases and the change are Hawaii, Georgia, Texas, Mississippi, Florida, South Carolina, Alabama, Oklahoma, Connecticut and Maryland. A few outliers but the southeast clearly continues to be in the best shape.
The bottom 11 are Iowa, Nevada, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Arizona, South Dakota, Minnesota, Colorado, Michigan, Vermont, New Mexico and New Hampshire. We get a cluster in the upper Midwest, another one in the Southern Rockies and two from New England.
Facing Diagonal Wall 