US Covid Cases Up Slightly

This is data updated today and through November 2nd, 2022. As expected, some of the glitches in last week’s data were corrected so I’m assuming they’ve got most of the data issues resolved with the move from daily to weekly reporting.

Last week, I said cases were up but, with the revised numbers, they actually fell again but only by 0.4%. That made it thirteen weeks in a row of declining cases. Once again, it appears that streak is over as the data from today showed 273,110 newly reported cases this last week and that is 4.7% higher than last week.

Cases were up in 30 states plus DC and down in 20 so the weekly increase was relatively broad based. As shown in the graph below, most of the increases were less than 20%. The largest increases were in North Carolina, Tennessee, Nebraska, West Virginia and New Jersey. But it is far too early to know if any of these represent a trend.

While cases were up, they still remain low compared to the rest of the year and they are much lower than where we were at this time last year. Only New Jersey, Connecticut, Hawaii, New York and Tennessee had more cases this week than they did at this time last year.

The ten states with the most cases (per million) last week were New Jersey, New York, New Mexico, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Michigan, Rhode Island, Missouri, Illinois and Maine. A couple of clusters and most are in the north.

The ten states with the fewest cases (per million ) last week were Georgia, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, DC, Alaska, Florida, Washington, Nevada and California. Since DC isn’t a state, the next state on the list would be Iowa. Last year at this time, Georgia, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, DC and Florida also ranked in the top 10 for fewest cases.

Overall, we saw a slight increase in newly reported cases last week and more than half of the states saw an increase. But numbers still remain low compared to the rest of the year or to this time last year. Another winter wave wouldn’t be a shock so this could be the start but one week does not make a trend.