California has ‘uncontrolled spread’ of COVID-19, data show. How bad is it?
The coronavirus is spreading “uncontrolled” in California, a report shows.
A map created by public health and crisis experts uses COVID-19 data and White House reopening criteria to track each state’s progress in controlling the spread of the virus based on several measures. It then categorizes them into different levels of spread based on those trends.
California is in the “bruised red” color, indicating “uncontrolled spread” — the highest level.
The report tracks the spread of the virus using seven factors: the 14-day trend of positive cases, levels of influenza-like illnesses, ICU bed capacity, hospital bed capacity, percent of the testing target reached, the percent of positive tests and new cases per million people each day.
The state’s “weakest measure” determines its category: bruised red, red for trending poorly, yellow for making progress or green for trending better.
California’s 14-day trend of COVID-19 cases and its new cases per million people per day pushed it into the “bruised red” category.
The state has seen a 38% increase in reported coronavirus cases over the last 14 days, according to the data. It’s also seen 212 new cases per million per day, the data show.
California fell into the “trending poorly” category for its positive-test rate, which the report says is at an average of 7.5% over the past seven days.
But the Golden State has done well on widespread testing, the data show, reaching 187% of its goal.
Eighteen other states, including Arizona, Nevada, Utah and Idaho, also fell into the dark red category along with California, the data show. Much of the Southeast also falls into the category.
Only four states made it into the green category: New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Maine.
Once hot spots for the coronavirus pandemic, many northeastern states are now seeing some of the lowest case counts and infection rates in the country. In turn, southern states have seen their cases skyrocket and are emerging as new hot spots for the outbreak.
This story was originally published July 15, 2020 at 9:07 AM with the headline "California has ‘uncontrolled spread’ of COVID-19, data show. How bad is it?."