SALT LAKE CITY — Utah was once one of the nation’s leaders in mitigating the spread of the coronavirus, but now it’s at the back of the pack.
Seven states — including Utah — have seen their 7-day average of coronavirus cases spike by more than 50% in the last week, according to Axios. Cases in Puerto Rico have also risen by more than half.
The six other states, located predominately in the West, include Arizona, Colorado, Minnesota, Montana, Texas and Wyoming.
Fifteen additional states have seen that average rise by at least 10%, but have not spiked past 50%.
Axios used coronavirus information from the “The COVID Tracking Project,” which complies data published by state and territory public health agencies. According to the Project’s website, data are collected daily and is double-checked by people, not automated data-scraping software. The data for these state-by-state statistics are as of Sept. 22.
The sickest
These seven states, and one territory, have seen the sharpest increase of 7-day average coronavirus cases:
- Arizona: 78.2% increase
- Texas: 76.1%
- Wyoming: 72.5%
- Montana: 68.7%
- Colorado: 67.3%
- Utah: 66%
- Puerto Rico: 65.8%
- Minnesota: 62.2%
Seeing improvement
These seven states have seen their 7-day average of coronavirus cases fall by more than 10% in the last week:
- Delaware: 29.4% drop
- Louisiana: 18.8%
- Hawaii: 17.1%
- Indiana: 16.3%
- Washington: 15.5%
- Ohio: 15.1%
- Michigan: 11.2%
Utah, by the numbers
As of Sept. 23, Utah’s health care workers have tested nearly 776,000 people for the coronavirus, reports the state’s pandemic tracker. Of those tested, 8.5% — or 65,921 people — have tested positive.
Sadly, 444 of those people have died from the virus, putting the death rate at 0.67% of all who tested positive.
If there is positive news, it’s that Utah’s death rate is noticeably lower than the national average of 2.92%, according to the data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Johns Hopkins coronavirus map.
Delaware — which has seen the most improvement — has a death rate of 3.16%, while Arizona — the state with the sharpest spike — has a 2.58% rate of death, according to each state’s coronavirus reporting.
On Thursday, Utah officials reported a new daily record of 1,198 new cases. As recently as Aug. 18, daily confirmed cases had dropped as low as 238.
U.S. vs. the world
Although the U.S. makes up just 4% of the world’s population, the country accounts for 22% of the global coronavirus cases, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Johns Hopkins tracker.
Globally, 0.42% of the population has tested positive for the virus, with a global death rate is 3%.
More than 2% of the U.S. population has been confirmed to have the virus.