NR Coronavirus Update: Cross-State Comparisons

There are now ten U.S. states with more than 500 confirmed cases of coronavirus, with many on the path to severe outbreaks. The situation is most dire in New York, which has confirmed more than 15,000 cases, but states such as Louisiana and New Jersey appear to be on worse trajectories. The growth rate of new cases per capita in those states is extremely steep, especially given that it has been less than ten days since each confirmed its 70th case. These numbers are, however, complicated by persistent testing disparities among states.

California continues to lag the testing capacity of its counterparts with similar outbreaks. Governor Newsom has pulled out practically all the stops in social distancing, so the state presumably has seen a slowing rate of new cases, but its true rate may be higher than current numbers reflect. Until states such as New Jersey and California ramp up testing, it will be impossible to measure the severity of their outbreaks.

While the U.S. has seen an encouraging increase in tests over the past few days, the number of tests administered on Sunday was barely higher than Saturday. We’ll be watching this metric closely to see if the U.S. can maintain last week’s testing growth rate of nearly 40 percent.

Below is a heat map of the confirmed cases per 1 million residents in each state.