COVID Map Shows States Where Case Counts Are Highest

The southwestern states and the Great Plains regions are the worst-hit areas by COVID-19 cases this week, despite a country-wide drop in case numbers.

COVID data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as of the week ending October 21 shows that the United States as a whole has an 8.7 percent test positivity rate, meaning that of all the tests taken, 8.7 percent came back positive. This is 0.7 percent lower than it was the week prior when the country as a whole had a 9.5 percent test positivity rate.

The states with the highest case rates include Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Utah and Colorado at 14 percent, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri all at 11.1 percent, and California, Arizona, Nevada and Hawaii at 11 percent, according to the CDC.

Region 9 (California, Hawaii, Arizona, Nevada), Region 8 (Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming and Utah), and Region 7 (Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska) therefore have higher case rates than the rest of the country, with an average test positivity rate of 10 to 14.9 percent, a new CDC map shows. Region 9, with an average of 11 percent, is 0.6 percent higher than it was the week before, while Region 8, at 14 percent, is 0.4 percent lower. Region 7, at 11.1 percent, is 1.2 percent higher.

The remaining states have test positivity rates between 5 and 9.9 percent.

"It's important people know when their risk of being exposed to the virus is on the rise so they can look out for symptoms and modify their risk of exposure, and of spreading the virus if they become infected," Catherine Bennett, an Alfred Deakin Professor of epidemiology and health at Deakin University, Australia, told Newsweek.

There have been 16,186 COVID hospital admissions over the last week, a 0.2 percent drop from the week before. This amounts to around 4.88 admissions per 100,000 people across the country, on average. Only Montana has more than 10 new COVID hospital admissions per 100,000 population, with a total of 107 hospital admissions in the last week.

Deaths from COVID have increased somewhat over the past week, however, with 2.7 percent of deaths being due to the virus. The prior week, this was 2.4 percent.

The decline in positive tests indicates that infections are stabilizing; however, as the winter months near, cases may spike once more as other infections weaken the public's immune system.

This comes only a few months after a new batch of COVID vaccines was made available to the public. Not many people went out and got these boosters, however: only 7 percent of adults and 2 percent of children received the new shots, CDC data shows. The booster rate was low amongst even the most at-risk groups, with only around 20 percent of people aged over 75 being vaccinated and 15 percent of those aged between 65 and 74.

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