At the moment, America has more than 5.26 million COVID-19 cases, while 167,000 people lost their lives. Coronavirus infections spread so rapidly, that every week we’re seeing a new state where numbers are spiking.
Moreover, the rise and the fall of daily infections differ from state to state and region to region. It depends very much on how officials are managing the outbreak and what measures are taken to stop the spread of the virus.
“Each region has its own socio-cultural reasons that contribute to the rate of spread and its own approach to dealing with that rate of spread,” says Carl Bergstrom, a professor of biology at the University of Washington who has been modeling infectious disease outbreaks for 20 years.
However, with COVID death toll is a totally different story. The states that have recorded the highest death rates in America aren’t currently hotspots, they’ve actually been in the same situation for months.
In addition, the states that have registered later spikes in coronavirus cases already learned from their predecessors how to contain the virus. It is a novel virus after all, so people are still discovering new things about it every day. Nevertheless, it is expected that the states seeing increases in coronavirus cases right now to have much lower mortality rates.
Read on and find out the five states that have recorded the highest rate of COVID deaths compared to their population size.
1. New Jersey
New Jersey was one of the first states that had to deal with a coronavirus outbreak in the United States, but things seem to be going on pretty well now, as the measures taken by state officials turned out to be effective in stopping the spread of the virus.
According to The New York Times, there are around 188,000 positive cases recorded in the state as of August 14 and 15,893 lost their lives to the virus. In 2019, Garden State’s population was 8,882,000, which means that .0018 percent of its inhabitants have lost the battle against COVID-19, making it the state that has the largest number of coronavirus deaths in America.
2. New York
New York was the first and the most severe hotspot in the United States at the beginning of the pandemic. New York has 428,000 infections as of August 14, and 32,399 people lost their lives to the virus, according to The New York Times.
As of 2019, the Empire state’s population was 19,450,000, which means that .0017 percent of its residents have died because of COVID-19.
3. Massachusetts
Massachusetts definitely didn’t have it easy with COVID-19, but somehow managed to get the situation under control. Not for long, though, as the COVID case numbers are spiking again in the state. According to The New York Times, Massachusetts has around 122,000 infections as of August 14 and 8,790 deaths registered in the state.
In 2019, Massachusetts’ population was 6,893,000, which means that for .0013 percent of its inhabitants, COVID-19 was fatal. And if you take a look at the state’s current situation, it is a possibility that the number of deaths could go even higher.
4. Connecticut
Connecticut is now in a “good place,” according to Dr. Fauci and it is categorized as a “yellow” state by the experts from the Covid Act Now. The 0.99 infection rate shows that the virus is spreading slowly, which is definitely a good sign.
“Connecticut is in a good place, the numbers that the governor just showed are really indicative that you are in a situation that you now in many respects have the upper hand because you have such a low rate that when you do get new cases, you have the capability of containment,” Fauci said.
However, it wasn’t always like that. This state lost a lot of people in the battle against COVID-19. As of August 14, 50,782 are infected with the virus and 4,450 have lost their lives. Considering that the number of population in the Nutmeg State is 3,565,000 as of 2019, .0012 percent of its residents succumbed to coronavirus.
5. Rhode Island
According to The New York Times, Rhode Island has 20,240 COVID-19 cases as of August 14 and 1,019 deaths. However, in the last few weeks, Rhode Island has been mentioned as one of the states that are handling COVID-19 very well.
Even though the number of coronavirus cases doesn’t seem so high, considering that “Little Rhody” had a total population of 1,059,000 as of 2019, that means .0010 percent of its residents died from COVID-19. This number makes Rhode Island the fifth-highest death rate state in the United States.
