COVID-19 Trackers' Map Shows Mountain State Embers

The new government COVID-19 tracking map shows that most of the country seems to be moving in the right direction, but that the outbreak might be flaring up in Wisconsin, and in the Mountain States.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has put numbers, maps and charts telling the outbreak story in its latest weekly COVIDView 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 overview article about the latest weekly COVID-19 report is available here.

Because testing for any new disease is often difficult, and because testing for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes COVID-19, has been especially difficult, the CDC includes data on indicators such as total deaths as well as data on deaths officially linked to COVID-19.

The CDC also provides several types of early warning sign numbers, including data on how many “influenza-like illness” patients primary care doctors, urgent care centers and hospital emergency rooms are seeing.

Better access to SARS-Cov-2 testing may change the numbers, but, up till now, about 6% of confirmed COVID-19 cases have ended in death, according to OurWorldinData.org. Many people who die from COVID-19 spend weeks in the hospital before they die. That means the number of new cases cropping up in a state may indicate how many people will be dying from COVID-19 within the next few weeks.

The CDC depends on states to report complete, accurate data to develop its COVID-19 tracking report.

In spite of public health officials’ need for good outbreak data, some states have been slow to send in their data.

In some places, critics of state and local officials have accused officials of distorting outbreak-related data for political reasons.

The data the CDC is reporting suggests activity is at very low or minimal levels, or falling toward minimal levels, in most of the country.

One concern is that COVID-19 and COVID-19-like cases have started to crop up in Montana and Mexico.

Activity appears to be increasingly rapidly in Idaho.

Activity was already at a moderate level in Wisconsin and appears to have increased one notch.

We’ve posted activity maps in the slideshow above.

We’ve reported state data, and data for New York City, which reports its data as if it were a state, in tables below.

State	COVID Deaths	Pneumonia Deaths	Total Deaths	Percent of Expected Deaths
Deaths by State* (Week ending May 2)
Alabama	41	56	800	81%
Alaska	0	0	41	46%
Arizona	52	76	1,073	92%
Arkansas	NA	33	465	77%
California	210	370	4,186	82%
Colorado	110	84	814	110%
Connecticut	NA	NA	NA	0%
Delaware	42	19	134	85%
District of Columbia	19	22	83	69%
Florida	207	316	3,863	97%
Georgia	101	95	1,091	66%
Hawaii	NA	14	195	90%
Idaho	NA	11	228	87%
Illinois	366	309	2,249	111%
Indiana	170	157	1,149	92%
Iowa	47	29	516	87%
Kansas	15	24	458	94%
Kentucky	12	35	522	58%
Louisiana	95	71	594	70%
Maine	NA	13	272	102%
Maryland	278	154	1,185	124%
Massachusetts	802	361	1,901	167%
Michigan	342	254	2,079	114%
Minnesota	129	79	895	106%
Mississippi	68	60	588	100%
Missouri	61	60	902	73%
Montana	NA	NA	49	26%
Nebraska	12	20	231	72%
Nevada	24	46	407	83%
New Hampshire	30	19	257	109%
New Jersey	401	286	1,527	109%
New Mexico	34	22	272	77%
New York	786	502	2,644	139%
New York City	988	451	1,985	197%
North Carolina	NA	0	NA	0%
North Dakota	NA	NA	86	62%
Ohio	114	95	1,484	64%
Oklahoma	15	28	349	46%
Oregon	10	17	439	65%
Pennsylvania	410	243	2,558	102%
Rhode Island	26	14	78	35%
South Carolina	23	48	759	83%
South Dakota	10	NA	96	58%
Tennessee	20	79	1,211	87%
Texas	69	200	2,710	71%
Utah	10	12	367	103%
Vermont	NA	NA	96	92%
Virginia	181	131	1,406	109%
Washington	45	60	689	63%
West Virginia	10	NA	37	8%
Wisconsin	54	48	996	99%
Wyoming	0	NA	52	60%
Puerto Rico	11	23	158	29%
United States	6,464	5,057	47,070	87%
“NA” here means that a state either failed to report data, or that the number of cases reported was between 1 and 9 and was left out for privacy reasons. States with entries in italics have reported deaths below 60% of the expected figure and appear to have submitted incomplete data, or no data.
Soure: CDC, Provisional Death Counts for Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)

Deaths by Week in New York City
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	95	19	114	1,168	102%
Feb. 8	0	95	18	113	1,170	98%
Feb. 15	0	86	13	99	1,130	99%
Feb. 22	0	75	NA	84	1,092	101%
Feb. 29	0	83	NA	89	1,107	101%
March 7	0	92	NA	100	1,112	101%
March 14	NA	103	NA	112	1,127	104%
March 21	116	154	14	243	1,396	133%
March 28	911	589	46	1,164	2,745	267%
April 4	2,944	1,693	209	3,408	5,992	582%
April 11	4,412	2,021	321	4,796	7,535	707%
April 18	3,470	1,388	170	3,636	5,474	539%
April 25	2,125	936	76	2,244	3,523	357%
May 2	988	451	NA	1,062	1,985	197%
May 9	472	218	NA	515	1,203	122%