Four U.S. states – Tennessee, Rhode Island, Arizona, and Ohio – now lead the world in new COVID-19 cases. The European country of Georgia (not to be confused with the U.S. state of the same name) had a weekly average of 100.1 new cases per 100,000 people on December 14th, which is the highest among all countries. Tennessee, Rhode Island, Arizona, and Ohio all exceed that level. Tennessee is highest with a weekly average of 117 new cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 people on December 14th. This is much higher than the total U.S. average of 65.4 new cases per 100,000 people. See the graph below for a comparison (the US trails only five eastern European countries – the rate of infection is now higher than that of Sweden which has done little to slow the spread of COVID-19).
Tennessee and Arizona are currently spiking, while Rhode Island is pulling back from a recent peak and the spread of COVID-19 seems to have taken at least a brief pause in its recent upward surge. Since I live in Tennessee, I was concerned to learn that I live in the current hottest of hot spots for the spread of COVID-19 in the entire world. Tennessee is a big state so I decided to look at how it is spreading among its 95 counties. The state total is an average and there can be significant fluctuations around averages.
The biggest increases in COVID-19 cases by population in a set of contiguous rural counties in middle Tennessee. Four of the top five counties in Tennessee for new cases are DeKalb, Cannon, Warren, Lincoln, and Moore counties. The median population among these counties is 20,000 and the median number of daily new cases over the last week is 201 per 100,000 people. In DeKalb county, in just the last week, approximately 1.5% of the total county population was infected – and that is just the confirmed cases! The county where I live, Rutherford, is closer to the average but that is not much comfort as that is the highest rate of infection in the world. And four of the top five counties are near Rutherford. Cannon county, currently number 2 among Tennessee counties for new COVID-19 cases, is adjacent to Rutherford.
Thanksgiving travel and gatherings is one factor that has led to an increase in the rate of infections in the U.S. Christmas gatherings will continue to fuel the spread of COVID-19. Another issue is Christmas shopping – many people are out and about and are spending a lot of time indoors with other people in stores. The parking lot at my local Wal Mart was very crowded the last time I drove past it on Monday.