As the U.S. approaches 4 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, local health officials are reporting more cases per day than at any previous point. The virus is concentrated now in states that had relatively few confirmed cases not long ago. On June 22, there were seven states with at least 100,000 cumulative confirmed infections. As of July 20, there are now 10, with several more on pace to hit that threshold within a week.
24/7 Wall St. reviewed data on confirmed COVID-19 cases, as reported by local and state government health agencies since the outbreak began, to determine the states with the highest number of confirmed cases per capita. We calculated the total number of COVID-19 diagnoses per 100,000 residents since the start of the outbreak in each state using one-year population data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2018 American Community Survey. Data is as of July 19 for all states except Oregon, for which data is as of July 17.