COVID-19 Trackers' Map Continues to Clear

The new government COVID-19 tracking report shows that most states are now a nice, healthy green. That means their doctors' offices, urgent care clinics and emergency rooms are handling few patients with COVID-19, or anything that looks like COVID-19. But many of the people who were getting sick a few weeks ago are still in the hospital, and some of those people are dying. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has put the numbers in the latest edition of its weekly COVIDView newsletter. The CDC includes many maps, tables and charts in the newsletter.

Resources

• The CDC's weekly COVID-19 report is available here.
• The CDC's provisional COVID-19 mortality data table is available here.
• An article about the previously weekly COVID-19 report is available here.

Because testing for a new viral disease is difficult, the CDC bases much of the newsletter on reports on all kinds of conditions that look like COVID-19, including influenza and pneumonia. The map appears to show that number of new cases of COVID-19 and of COVID-19 look-alike illnesses is falling in most of the country, other than Minnesota, Wisconsin and Vermont. Although COVID-19 and COVID-19 look-alike illnesses continue to cause a very high percentage of all U.S. deaths, the percentage is falling back closer to normal epidemic levels. But a look at the weekly statistics for New York City shows why public health officials continue to see severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) — the virus that causes COVID-19  — as a formidable foe: In New York City, it caused the number of deaths per week to rise to almost three times the expected level for the week ending March 28, and almost seven times the expected level for the week ending April 11. The CDC bases the "expected levels" on the average number of deaths for the comparable weeks in the year in 2017, 2018 and 2019. The ratio of actual deaths to expected deaths seems to have started falling in New York City in the week ending April 18, but it was still over 300% for the week ending April 25, which is the most recent week for which the CDC has reasonably complete state-level data. The extremely high number of deaths in an especially hard-hit area may explain some of the delays in life insurance claim filing that some life insurers have been talking about in their first-quarter earnings calls. New York City is the only city with its own line in the CDC's provisional mortality tables. Massachusetts and New Jersey are the two states with the highest ratios of actual to expected deaths. In both states, the number of deaths per week is about twice as high as the expected level. One common question about the data is what effect efforts to ease shelter-in-place restrictions might have on the number of new infections. Another is question is  how complete and accurate the numbers are, given the difficulties with testing, and the pressures jurisdictions may have to report positive rates that are higher and lower than they really are. Executives at Voya Financial Inc.have said that they might be seeing a noticeable lag in the filing of COVID-19-related life insurance claims.   .

Deaths by Week
Week  Ending Date	COVID-19 Deaths	Pneumonia Deaths	Flu Deaths	Pneumonia, Flu, and COVID-19 Deaths	Total Deaths	Percent of Expected Deaths
Feb. 1	0	3,700	471	4,171	57,444	97%
Feb. 8	1	3,686	499	4,186	57,766	97%
Feb. 15	0	3,710	521	4,231	57,077	97%
Feb. 22	1	3,573	541	4,115	57,041	98%
Feb. 29	7	3,663	623	4,288	57,252	99%
March 7	29	3,766	594	4,372	56,850	98%
March 14	50	3,726	590	4,340	54,895	96%
March 21	504	4,229	504	5,001	54,997	97%
March 28	2,771	5,722	416	7,596	58,379	104%
April 4	8,437	8,994	441	13,614	65,937	118%
April 11	13,261	10,539	444	18,005	70,404	127%
April 18	12,556	9,105	234	16,341	64,003	118%
April 25	7,875	6,106	116	10,706	49,968	92%
May 2	1,636	1,936	25	2,949	25,168	39%
Total	45,492	70,519	5,994	100,966	762,013	103%

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Deaths by State* (Week ending April 25)
State	COVID Deaths	Pneumonia Deaths	Total Deaths	Percent of Expected Deaths
Alabama	28	48	731	73%
Arizona	46	80	1,077	92%
Arkansas	11	29	500	85%
California	274	458	4,681	91%
Colorado	137	108	873	118%
Delaware	24	13	131	35%
District of Columbia	20	25	107	84%
Florida	204	317	3,910	98%
Georgia	78	91	1,109	67%
Idaho	11	15	242	93%
Illinois	333	282	2,348	117%
Indiana	160	179	1,221	98%
Iowa	38	34	463	80%
Kansas	12	35	482	100%
Kentucky	34	65	573	61%
Louisiana	94	69	605	67%
Maine	17	16	278	94%
Maryland	281	155	1,277	136%
Massachusetts	892	436	2,102	189%
Michigan	357	273	2,040	109%
Minnesota	108	85	869	105%
Mississippi	39	60	606	102%
Missouri	46	72	915	75%
Nebraska	0	12	185	59%
Nevada	39	52	413	80%
New Hampshire	17	30	267	108%
New Jersey	921	636	2,589	190%
New Mexico	22	20	228	64%
New York	1,003	676	2,986	157%
New York City	1,797	791	3,126	317%
Ohio	68	93	1,451	63%
Oklahoma	15	33	496	67%
Oregon	13	22	433	62%
Pennsylvania	403	213	1,696	66%
Rhode Island	13	*	66	33%
South Carolina	22	52	718	78%
Tennessee	10	80	1,169	80%
Texas	63	177	2,756	73%
Utah	13	16	391	110%
Vermont	11	*	117	103%
Virginia	117	94	1,317	103%
Washington	35	59	912	88%
Wisconsin	36	48	892	89%
United States	7,875	6,106	49,968	92%
* This table leaves out some rows that appear to contain especially incomplete data.

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Deaths by Week in New York City
Week, Ending Date	COVID-19 Deaths	Pneumonia Deaths	Flu Deaths	Pneumonia, Influenza, and COVID-19 Deaths	Total Deaths	Percent of Expected Deaths
Feb. 1	0	95	19	114	1,168	102%
Feb. 8	0	95	18	113	1,169	97%
Feb. 15	0	86	13	99	1,130	99%
Feb. 22	0	75	*	84	1,092	101%
Feb. 29	0	83	*	89	1,105	101%
Marc h 7	0	92	*	100	1,111	101%
March 14	*	103	*	112	1,124	103%
March 21	112	153	14	240	1,390	133%
March 28	875	584	45	1,134	2,725	265%
April 4	2,828	1,649	208	3,303	5,878	571%
April 11	4,175	1,929	320	4,591	7,302	685%
April 18	3,172	1,265	162	3,351	5,134	505%
April 25	1,797	791	72	1,926	3,126	317%
May 2	456	217	*	507	1,259	105%
TOTAL	13,415	7,217	871	15,763	34,713	235%

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