Month: July 2020

Today’s edition frames how the USA’s COVID death rate compares with other highly developed countries (our death rate is 78% higher). We also portray each state’s weekly progression of COVID tests, cases, and deaths through the month of July. July has been a disappointing “step backwards” month in the USA overall and especially so in many states. Nationwide, we experienced nearly twice as many COVID deaths this past week as occurred during the first week of July.

This edition assesses the COVID death rate in the United States in a global context. The cumulative COVID death rate in the USA to date is 6.6 times higher than the rest of the world’s collective rate. Of the 160 countries whose COVID death rates have been tracked by Johns Hopkins University, the USA’s rate is 10th highest.

This edition of the 5 slide series contains our tabulations of this week’s COVID progression. By all key measures, this has been a troubling week in terms of the pandemic worsening. New deaths were 22% higher in the week of July 8-15 versus those occurring from July 1-8. The number of persons hospitalized as of July 15 was 22% above the July 8 figure. New cases increased 20% this week relative to the prior week’s volume. Testing volume increased by 15%. The rate of tests with a positive result has increased further this past week (to 8.5%). The progression of these nationwide statistics across the past several weeks is shown in the presentation.

This week’s edition of the 5 Slide Series tracks recent COVID-19 trends. We have summarized the weekly progression of cases, tests, and deaths through July 8 at the national, state, and county levels. 72% of the US population resides in a county where the number of new cases increased during the week of July 1 – July 8 relative to the previous seven-day period.

This edition of our 5-slide series quantifies– in numerous ways– the disturbing resurgence of COVID-19. In 46 states, for example, the number of new cases emerging during June 23-30 surpassed the number from the prior week. The number of new COVID deaths this past week were 50% above the fatalities during the previous week.

Our tabulations are provided at the national and state levels (including US Territories), and we’ve also identified the 20 counties with the largest increase in new cases this past week relative to the previous week.