Tracking COVID-19 Hospitalizations: CDC Data Reveals Sharp Increases in Certain States

2023-11-16 08:00:00

COVID hospitalizations are climbing in certain states, despite an overall decline in hospitalizations countrywide.

In the week ending November 4, 14,728 people across the U.S. were admitted to hospital with COVID, down from the 15,745 new people in the week ending October 28, and again from the 16,186 in the week prior.

While this represents an 8 percent decline in hospitalizations since the week before, several states have seen a sharp increase, including Alaska, Hawaii, South Dakota, Kentucky, Delaware and Rhode Island, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

CDC map of percentage change in new COVID-19 hospital admissions from prior week, by county. Alaska, Hawaii and South Dakota are among the states seeing a sharp increase in COVID hospitalizations.
CDC

South Dakota saw a 20.3 percent jump in hospitalizations, with 77 new COVID-positive hospital admissions in the week ending November 4. In the same week, Kentucky saw a 26.7 percent rise with 308 new hospitalizations, Alaska saw a 25 percent climb with 20 new hospitalizations, Delaware had a 26.3 percent rise with 48 hospitalizations, Hawaii with a 10.3 percent rise with 118, and Rhode Island increased by 13.3 percent at 51 new hospitalizations.

States with the largest number of hospitalizations during that week include New York, with 1,026, Texas at 1,034, California at 1,618, and Florida at 832. Due to high numbers in previous weeks, however, these are small rises or even decreases from before, with Texas’s count being 14.5 percent lower and New York being 18.8 percent lower.

CDC map of percentage change in new COVID-19 hospital admissions from the prior week. Orange states have the largest climb, while dark green have the greatest decrease.
CDC

“As of the week ending November 4, 2023, national rates of new hospital admissions of patients with confirmed COVID-19 have decreased by 8 percent compared with the previous week. Additionally, COVID-19 admission rates have decreased or remained stable (defined as a percent change in COVID-19 admissions per 100,000 population of -9.9 percent to 9.9 percent) across all HHS Regions and majority of states compared with the previous week,” Candice Hoffman of the CDC told Newsweek.

“While COVID-19 admission rates have increased in these jurisdictions, absolute counts of COVID-19 admissions remain low. Therefore, despite weekly total admissions remaining low, small fluctuations week-over-week in total counts of admissions can result in spurious large percent change values, even on the state and regional levels.”

Other states where cases have been declining include Alabama with a 24 percent drop, Iowa with a decrease of 30.3 percent, North Dakota with a 33.3 percent decline, and Vermont at 24.2 percent lower than the week before.

The localized rises in hospitalizations might be due to a vast number of factors including vaccination rates and state-specific measures.

“A rise in COVID-19 hospitalizations can be attributed to various factors including the emergence of new variants that may be more transmissible or cause more severe illness,” Hoffman said. “Additionally, vaccination rates, public health measures, and individual behaviors can influence the overall spread of the virus and, consequently, the number of hospitalizations.

CDC map of COVID case posivity rates.
CDC

Test positivity rates have also seen a decline of 0.5 percent since the prior week, with only 8.5 percent of COVID tests coming back positive countrywide.

Hotspots for positive tests include California, Nevada, Hawaii and Arizona, where the average test positivity rate is 16.7 percent.

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