An analysis of COVID-19 trends across all 50 U.S. states as well as Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico found there were increases in hospitalizations over the past two weeks in 42 states.
The analysis also found increases in newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 in 40 states plus Puerto Rico, increases in the daily positivity rate of COVID-19 tests in 27 states and increases in daily COVID-19 death tolls in 17 states.
Since Oct. 1, there have been 972,902 cases reported nationwide. More than 400,000 of those cases have been reported in just the last seven days. The country is on track this week to exceed 1 million cases for the month of October, making it the fourth month on record to surpass the grim milestone.
Cases are undoubtably surging nationally. The United States is currently averaging 57,000 new cases a day — the highest it has been in 11 weeks. That average has increased by 67% since Sept. 12.
Two states — Kansas and Tennessee — hit a record number of new cases reported in a 24-hour reporting period, while five states — Kentucky, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio and Wyoming — saw a record number of current hospitalizations in a day.
The trends were all analyzed from data collected and published by the COVID Tracking Project over the past two weeks, using the linear regression trend line of the seven-day moving average to examine whether a state’s key indicators were increasing, decreasing or remained flat.
