Saturday marks three years since the World Health Organization declared a Global Pandemic for COVID-19. Three years since the world began to shut down. Three years since the world was forever changed. Three years almost to the day that I came face-to-face with the Apocalypse.
As of March 5th, 2023, the number of confirmed Covid cases in the US alone has totaled over 103 million, while the confirmed death toll in the US now exceeds 1.12 million. Based on 2 separate conservative estimates, the actual death toll from Covid is probably an additional 200-400 thousand deaths higher. Millions continue to suffer from symptoms of Long Covid.
We are likely approaching the endemic state of Covid across the globe. In the US, the Covid Emergency will officially end on May 11... 38 months after the Global Pandemic was declared. Numbers indicate that the number of new Covid cases and Covid deaths are nowhere at the levels they were a year ago during the Omnicron wave or even 2 years ago, when the US was beginning to come out of the worst portion of the pandemic.
What this post will do tonight is take a look at which parts of this country have done the best in fighting Covid, and which have not.
I mentioned the actual Covid numbers above, but if you look at those same numbers of per 100k people, the numbers tell an equally devastating picture. In the US, the number of confirmed cases per 100k people currently stand at 31577, and the number of deaths per 100k people stands at 342. That means the number of confirmed cases that have ended in death are about 1.083%. Compare those numbers to the 1918-1920 Spanish Flu Pandemic in the US, where the per capita rate for Positive Flu cases were 28000, the death rate per 100k was 642 (est), and the percentage of confirmed flu cases that ended in death was estimated at 2.25%. You would be tempted to say the Spanish Flu Pandemic was worse, but keep in mind, the Covid pandemic had better means of treatment than the flu pandemic had. Plenty of ventilators, experimental treatments, and vaccines were things those treating the Covid pandemic had that those treating the flu pandemic did not.
So how do you determine which states have done well and which have not? Let's take a look at California, for example. California has had the most number of confirmed cases total over 12 million and the most number of deaths as that number exceeds 100k (these number are taken from statistics compiled by Johns Hopkins University from all 50 states' Dept. of Health COVID Sites). Looks bad, right? Well, not as bad as you think. Keep in mind, California has just under 40 million people living in the state. That means the number of cases per 100k people is at 30651, the number of deaths per 100k people is at 256, and the percentage of cases that have ended in death is about 0.835%... all three categories of measurement being below the national averages by significant margins.
Based on a formula I used from Microsoft Excel, where I use Normal Statistical Distribution curves comparing California's numbers to the US mean numbers and the Standard Deviation of all 50 states (weighted with Confirmed Cases per 100k accounting for 33% of the total score, deaths per 100k accounting for 50% of the score, and Percent of cases ending in death accounting for 17% of the score), California's score on a scale from 0 to 100 (0 being no Covid cases or deaths and 100 meaning the pandemic was a disaster) is 24.382... and good enough for 11th best out of 50 states.
So which 10 states are doing a better job of dealing with the pandemic than California? Here they are, with their respective scores as of March 5th, 2023:
10. Maryland - 22.807
9. Virginia - 22.787
8. Colorado - 22.327
7. Nebraska - 20.732
6. New Hampshire - 12.251
5. Oregon - 10.262
4. Maine - 8.986
3. Washington - 7.642
2. Hawaii - 5.106
1. Vermont - 2.555
A couple of notes here... Vermont has not updated their numbers in over 2 weeks, so Vermont's score is probably going to have to be adjusted higher. But, those adjusted number are unlikely to change Vermont's status as the state that has handled the Pandemic best of all. Secondly, Washington DC does not count in these rankings, but if they did, DC's score of 7.186 would be good enough to place it 3rd best.
Now we go the other side of the ledger and point out the 10 worst states dealing with the pandemic. Early on in this pandemic, New Jersey and New York were the two worst states overall. But times have changed and those two states no longer even rank in the bottom 10 of states that have dealt with the pandemic. New York current ranks 38th with a score of 72.375 and New Jersey ranks 40th with a score of 73.759. That's not to say that New York and New Jersey have turned it around as much as it says other states failed to learn from their lessons and have made the same or even worse mistakes.
So here are the 10 worst states going from 41st to 50th place with their respective scores as of March 5th, 2023:
41. New Mexico - 74.824
42. Florida - 74.956
43. Kentucky - 77.359
44. Alabama - 77.505
45. Arkansas - 77.765
46. Oklahoma - 79.445
47. Mississippi - 80.664
48. Tennessee - 81.994
49. Arizona - 82.028
50. West Virginia - 84.294
Some other states of notes... Texas is 17th with a score of 38.956, Illinois is 21st with a score of 46.492, Ohio is 23rd with a score of 49.857, Georgia is 33rd with a score of 61.291, and Indiana is 34th with a score of 61.425.
This pandemic has generally affected more rural areas than urban ones. For example, Georgia's big 5 Metro Atlanta Area counties have accounted for 20% of the deaths, but since they account for 33% of the population, it means those 5 counties are generally doing better at saving lives than the rest of the state. Johns Hopkins stats allow for counties to be compared with each other, so let's look at a metro Atlanta county (Gwinnett) and compare it with a exurban/rural county to its east (Walton). The number of confirmed positive cases per 100k in each county is roughly the same, but the death rate per 100k is more than double in Walton as compared with Gwinnett. Similar findings occur in other counties and while a few rural counties in GA buck the trend (Forsyth County is a good example), every county that is above GA's average of 400 deaths per 100k people is a rural or metro Atlanta exurban county. Many metro areas across this country have hospitals that have been stressed to the limit in this pandemic... and those are the hospitals that have actually been able to save hundreds of thousands of lives. If a rural county does have a hospital, many across this country have been exposed in this pandemic as being broken and, with many in rural areas having mistrust of medicine and doctors, it appears rural hospitals may take a long time to recover from this pandemic... if they ever do.
A new kind of normal is beginning to emerge and things will never be the way they once were. Covid will never disappear. It is here to stay. Whether via vaccine or by getting the virus, humans genetics will evolve to fight Covid and, one day, getting Covid will be no different than getting the flu or a cold. It may take some time, however.
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