No Slowdown in Sight

Weekly Highlights of the Geography of COVID by the US COVID Atlas Team

Since the end of May, till June 26th, the US added more than 660,000 new cases and 18,000 deaths due to COVID-19. In 7 days alone from June 19–26, over 242,000 cases were added with California, Florida, and Texas each seeing more than 30,000 new cases.

June 26th recorded the highest number of cases in the US since the beginning of the pandemic.

Even though urban areas still tend to have the highest overall numbers, the epidemic has spread from large urban centers to suburban and rural parts of the country, with high rate of cases per 10K population. This is especially concerning for rural areas with lower overall healthcare access.

Figure 1: Spatial Distribution of COVID-19 Cases Per 10K Population in the US, Jun 26, 2020

Figure 2: New Cases of COVID-19 in the US, Feb 1 — Jun 26, 2020

Maricopa County in Arizona & Los Angeles both with 13,000+ cases saw the highest spike in cases at the county level that week. LA has also seen the largest number of deaths across the country due to COVID in the past week and month. These numbers are higher than the outbreak seen in April. Multiple instances of outbreaks have also been tied to churches across the country.

The number of cases in Arizona, Arkansas, South Carolina, Florida, Utah, Texas, and North Carolina have more than doubled since the end of May.

Figure 3: Hotspots of New COVID-19 cases Per 10K population in the US by County for June, as of June 26

Southern & Western states have been hard hit by the pandemic

The reopening of businesses and relaxed stay-at-home orders have exacerbated the outbreaks. Even though counties in Texas are not actively flagged as hotspots, the number of cases in urban areas is rising fast for the state. Governor Greg Abbott put a pause on the state’s reopening schedule on June 25th after the recent uptick in cases.

Arizona ended their stay-at-home order on May-15, since then the state has added more than 40,000 cases with over 66 new cases per 10K people. The state had already been suffering from a persistent hotspot in the northeast corner near the New Mexico border. It has been expanding outwards towards Grand Canyon. Another hotspot has been emerging in the southwest corner of the state.

Similar policies were implemented in Florida and month-to-date the state has seen a hike of 66,000 new cases.

The situation is quite severe in these states with more than 60% of the counties being forecasted with a high severity risk by the Yu Group at Berkeley. Relative to the rest of the country, both states have higher uninsured population and older population and are more susceptible to a large scale scare.

Figure 4: COVID-19 Progression and Demographics information for Florida and Arizona, as of June 26

SouthEast cluster spanning Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia

A persistent cluster on the south-east side spanning across LA, AL, MS, and GA has existed for more than a month. A high number of cases with a rising rate of change in the rest of the state is pointing towards a probable further spread to neighbors.

Figure 5: COVID-19 hotspot in the SE, from June 15–26

This cluster has been expanding since mid-May. On average, the hotspot counties & their neighbors have higher vulnerable populations relative to the entire state.

Key measures for central belt hotspot counties across LA, AL, MS and GA, as compared to other counties. “Hotspot Clusters” are multi-county statistical hotspots with high values of population-adjusted COVID rates by county, surrounded by counties with high COVID values. Note that New Orleans (an early hot spot) is not included in the central belt hotspot cluster, but noticeably impacts Louisiana rates.

Overall the situation seems dire across the country and with relaxed social distancing measures a slowdown doesn’t seem in sight.

• All geographical analysis uses USA Facts data.
• All analysis and month-to-date numbers are as of June 26th, 2020, unless otherwise specified.