States in the Great Lakes and northern Midwest regions are among those that have the highest prevalence of COVID-19 infections recorded in the most recent week, maps produced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show.
The federal agency's northern central administrative regions had, on average, a prevalence of antigen tests returning positive results above 10 percent of those taken in the week of November 18. The rest of the country saw comparatively low test positivity rates, figures released on Sunday show, with the lowest levels in south-central states.
The CDC reported that, nationwide, the prevalence was around 8.2 percent of tests undertaken—a 1.7 percent decrease from the previous recorded week. The geographic picture of where positive cases are occurring has remained largely the same in the last two weeks, with Texas and the surrounding states seeing the largest fall.
Positive cases and hospitalizations with the virus had been steadily rising over the summer but appeared to peak at the end of September before plateauing. A CDC spokesperson previously said cases could pick up over the winter.
Localized rises in cases through the summer prompted some private institutions, hospital operators, and colleges in the United States to reintroduce the requirements for staff or visitors to wear masks while at their sites. Many of the institutions have since relaxed their mask mandates, though some hospitals in New Jersey brought them back.
The CDC does not give test positivity percentages for individual states anymore, instead giving them as an average across its administrative regions. Region Seven—which includes Iowa, Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska—had an overall prevalence of 14.1 percent positive tests out of 5,560 taken, up 1.4 percent on the prior week.
Region Eight—the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming, Utah and Colorado—had a test positivity rate of 13 percent out of nearly 4,200 taken, a fall of 1.2 percent on the previous week.
Across Region Five—Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota—there was a prevalence of positive tests of 12.5 percent out of around 16,400 taken that week, a change of 0.6 percent on the week prior.
All other administrative regions, including both the East and West Coast, southern states, Alaska and Hawaii, as well as Washington, D.C., had test positivity rates of less than 9.9 percent. Region Six, which includes Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arkansas and Louisiana, had the lowest rate, 3.3 percent, a decline of 7.1 percent compared to the week ending November 11.
The CDC said that the data did not include tests taken at home and added that the results may be subject to change due to delays in testing centers reporting back.
"The data represent laboratory tests performed, not individual people," the CDC said, as one person may be administered multiple tests in a week. The agency added that the percentage of positive tests "is one of the metrics used to monitor COVID-19 transmission over time and by area."
State-by-state increases in hospitalizations appear as more of a patchwork in the most recent week recorded, though Great Lakes and Midwestern states are among those to have seen moderate to substantial rises in hospital admissions with the virus, along with parts of the northeast.
Nationally, in the week to November 18, there were 18,119 hospitalizations with the virus across the U.S.—an overall rise of 9.7 percent on the previous seven-day period.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Aleks Phillips is a Newsweek U.S. News Reporter based in London. His focus is on U.S. politics and the environment. ... Read more
