Recent news reports indicate that both France and Germany are back on lock down after COVID-19 cases started a resurgence this Fall across most of Europe and the U.S. Even though the United States is experiencing new highs in daily cases, it is still much less than many European countries on a per capita basis. See the graph below for a comparison of the U.S. and Germany with the 11 countries currently experiencing the most new cases per capita.
Czechia and Belgium are currently experiencing the most new cases, with between 100 and 120 per 100,000 people. This is marked with a “1” in the graph. Many other European countries, including France and the Netherlands, are experiencing new records in number of daily cases, between 35 and 75 new cases per day per 100,000 people. The United States and Germany are at this point significantly lower, at 22 and 13 new cases per day per 100,000 people, respectively. That is some good news for the United States.
Now for the bad news. The U.S. is a large and geographically diverse country and many individual states are experiencing cases on par with the leading European countries. See the graph below.
New cases per day on a population-adjusted basis for North and South Dakota are comparable to the worst countries in Europe. These states are marked with a “1” in the graph. Montana, Wisconsin, and Alaska are next, with between 60 and 80 new cases per day per 100,000 people. This group is marked with a “2” in the graph. Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, and Nebraska are next, with between 45 and 60 new cases per day per 100,000 people. This group is marked with a “3” in the graph. Iowa, Tennessee, Rhode Island, Illinois, and New Mexico are experiencing between 35 and 45 new cases per day per 100,000 people and are part of group “4” in the graph. Of these 14 states, 12 are either experiencing new record highs for number of daily cases or are within 5% of their record highs. These 14 states are all currently seeing at least 35 new cases per day per 100,000 people, just like the top 11 countries in the world. Even more importantly, the Fall surge is just not a Midwestern phenomenon – the southeast (Tennessee), northeast (Rhode Island), and southwestern (New Mexico) regions also have representatives in the top 14.
While the United States is not near the top countries in the world in new cases, many U.S. states are experiencing surges comparable to the most severe outbreaks currently ongoing in the world.