These Are the Top COVID Hot Spots in the U.S.

COVID-19 hospitalizations in the U.S. have fallen week over week, according to the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The U.S. tallied approximately 14,700 new hospitalizations of people with COVID-19 over the seven days ending Nov. 4, according to provisional data – about 1,300 fewer than the total for the previous week. Aside from a modest uptick near the end of October, COVID hospitalizations in the U.S. have been declining of late after totaling close to 21,000 during the week ending Sept. 9. They had dipped to a low point of approximately 6,300 in late June before starting to trend back up.

Relative to population, data points to 4.4 new COVID-19 hospital admissions per 100,000 people for the week through Nov. 4. Across the U.S., all states had a “low” level of hospitalizations per 100,000 people, according to the CDC. South Dakota saw the highest rate over the week at 8.7 per 100,000, while Hawaii (8.3) and West Virginia (8.0) had the next-highest rates. Compared with the week prior, Kentucky had the highest percentage increase in its COVID-19 hospitalization rate among states at 27%, followed by Delaware (26%) and Alaska (25%).

Among patients visiting a subset of emergency departments, data indicates 1.2% were diagnosed with COVID-19 nationally – a rate down about 8% from the week before. New Mexico (4.2%), Wyoming (2.3%) and Colorado (2.3%) saw the highest rates.

Among U.S. counties – inclusive of areas like the District of Columbia, Guam and municipios in Puerto Rico – 45 were described by the CDC as having a “high” level of new COVID-19 hospital admissions in the week ending Nov. 4, with rates of 20 per 100,000 or higher. The Kansas counties of Kingman and Harper were reported to have the highest rates, each at 71.5 per 100,000 people. Another 250 counties were said to have a “medium” level of COVID-19 hospital admissions, with rates between 10.0 and 19.9 per 100,000 people.

Notably, the CDC’s county hospital admission figures are calculated at the Health Service Area level, which can span multiple counties. This means counties within the same HSA will share the same admission rates in the data. Areas also may be listed as having insufficient data.

Because hospitalization rates are calculated per 100,000 people, it’s worth noting that even a relatively small number of hospitalizations can lead to a higher hospitalization rate for small communities.

Other measures also can give a sense of the current state of COVID-19. For example, though the CDC has ceased publishing a “community level” metric that incorporated COVID-19 case rates and hospital admissions – as well as the average percentage of hospital beds occupied by COVID-19 patients – participating health departments submit the results of their sampling of wastewater for the virus to the CDC via the National Wastewater Surveillance System.

Since the U.S. passed 1 million cumulative deaths tied to COVID-19 in the spring of 2022, approximately 152,000 additional people have died in connection with the disease, according to provisional data from the CDC.

While the latest tallies are down from a recent peak of about 1,400 deaths in a week in September – and well below the maximum peak of around 26,000 deaths in a week in early 2021 – data indicates hundreds of people still have died in connection with COVID-19 of late. Oregon saw 4.3% of its total deaths attributed to COVID-19 during the week ending Nov. 4, according to provisional data, with an additional 13 states seeing shares higher than the national percentage of 2.3%.