These Might be the Next Ten States in Line

We have all heard about the struggles of Washington, California, and New York, but who’s next? A simple test of the public health response in every state suggests an answer. If you live in New Jersey, Alabama, or Maryland, brace yourself. Where does your state rank?

On the Diamond Princess cruise ship, where all of the passengers were tested, fewer than half had symptoms. And we now know that even cases with mild symptoms, or even none at all, can transmit the virus. So, only the most aggressive testing programs will catch a substantial portion of the infections. Imagine mice have invaded all of the houses on your block. You put out twenty traps and catch five mice. Your neighbor puts out five traps and gets four mice. Who has the bigger problem? To look only at the number of cases in two states is a bit like comparing how many mice you and your neighbor have caught. Which is more meaningful, the fact that you caught one more mouse or the fact that he gets mice 80% of the time and there are mice in only 20% of your traps? I would take your problems over his.

Every state has a problem but, in each case, we need to ask: Is the public health response proportionate to the threat? Specifically: are they measuring their problem with adequate testing? The glaring lack of capacity to test for the disease has played a key role in the explosive growth of the epidemic, making it almost impossible to control. You can’t stop what you can’t see. Some states are more blind than others.

Whose traps are most full? As of yesterday, based on data from the Covid Tracking Project, the percent of positive tests ranges from less than 1% in West Virginia to 67% in New Jersey. Alabama is at 48%. With six and five deaths respectively, it might already be clear that those two states have a problem. But other states in the top ten have only one death (Maryland, Connecticut, and Michigan). And four of the ten states have no deaths at all. If you live in Delaware, Utah, Iowa, or Tennessee, brace yourselves. It’s coming.

The full list. (Many thanks to Eryn Rogers for finding and assembling these data!)

Rank	State	Total Tests	Positive Tests	% Positive Tests	Deaths
1	NJ	638	427	67%	5
2	Ala.	96	46	48%	6
3	Md.	179	85	47%	1
4	La	575	240	42%	4
5	Conn.	193	68	35%	1
6	Del	76	25	33%	0
7	Utah	194	63	32%	0
8	Iowa	128	29	23%	0
9	Mich.	355	80	23%	1
10	Tenn.	447	98	22%	0
11	Ind.	193	39	20%	2
12	DC	170	31	18%	0
13	NY	14597	2382	16%	20
14	Ohio	551	88	16%	0
15	Nev.	353	55	16%	1
16	Ill	2052	289	14%	1
17	Ga	1508	197	13%	3
18	Fla	2493	314	13%	7
19	Hawaii	119	14	12%	16
20	Mass	2271	256	11%	0
21	Neb.	230	24	10%	0
22	Ark.	319	33	10%	0
23	Colo	1800	183	10%	2
24	Pa	1320	133	10%	1
25	Ariz.	278	28	10%	0
26	SC	643	60	9%	1
27	Wyo.	193	15	8%	0
28	Wash	14129	1012	7%	66
29	Calif	8592	611	7%	13
30	Ky.	380	26	7%	1
31	Miss.	513	34	7%	0
32	Wis	1683	106	6%	0
33	Va.	1278	77	6%	2
34	Okla.	517	29	6%	0
35	Mo.	266	13	5%	1
36	Ore.	1554	75	5%	1
37	Texas	1907	83	4%	2
38	Kan.	433	16	4%	1
39	RI	907	33	4%	0
40	NH	747	26	3%	0
41	NC	1850	63	3%	0
42	Vt.	611	19	3%	0
43	Minn.	2762	77	3%	0
44	Maine	1713	43	3%	0
45	ND	274	6	2%	0
46	Mont.	509	10	2%	0
47	Idaho	468	9	2%	0
48	Alaska	412	6	1%	0
49	SD	913	11	1%	1
50	NM	2354	28	1%	0
51	WVa	137	1	1%	0