Will Florida reach #1 on COVID deaths per capita?

[DINGO Joe]

Just an FYI, all the sites that do COVID per capita are still using 2019 pop estimates instead of actually 2020 Census numbers so there is a considerable adjustments especially for all the NE states that had a far higher census count than their estimates

The top 20 as of yesterday using 2020 data

1--Mississippi       3073
2--New Jersey      2920
3--Louisiana         2859
4--New York         2739
5--Arizona            2703
6--Massachusetts  2618
7--Rhode Island    2561
7--Alabama          2545
9--Arkansas          2444
10--Oklahoma       2435
11--South Dakota  2360
12--Connecticut     2334
13--Florida            2287
14--Georgia           2265
15--South Carolina 2243
16--Indiana            2217
16--Pennsylvania    2217
18--New Mexico      2195
19--Nevada            2186
20--Michigan          2175

Tennessee and Texas are at 22 and 23 and will knock two of the 16-20 out.    Generally speaking the SEC states are rising up the rankings fast and Mississippi and Louisiana will be 1-2 soon enough.  Too many other Southern train wrecks for Florida to reach #1.   Now if you did a post vaccine ranking with deaths after Jan, then Florida could contend but again it would even be more dominated by the other SEC states. 

[DINGO Joe]

Do you have the full list anywhere, by chance?

No I kind of lose interest when you go below the national average which is just before Tennessee which is pretty hot and will go above the national avg soon enough

21--Illinois            2112
22--Texas              2104
National                2067
23--Tennessee       2058

North Dakota was recently pushed below average and it's possible that Illinois will fall below too.  Really depends on how long Fla and Tx stay hot and how long the lag is for death reporting.

[DINGO Joe]

I think Alabama has a shot at the top spot.

They try real hard but don't think they can get past MS and LA

[DINGO Joe]

Today is Death Thursday in Florida (the day they drop most of their dead for the week) and Florida added 1511 dead today, so that takes them up to 2359, past CT and almost to SD.  I do expect that they'll ultimately get past RI and Mass but maybe not NY. 

[DINGO Joe]

No lol

Deaths are peaking here (which makes sense as cases and positivity rates peaked three weeks ago) and COVID-19's epicenter has moved northward (and will continue to move northward throughout the winter). This is how the virus works, especially with the higher R-Value of the Delta variant (which will keep cases and deaths up even with mass vaccination).

In fact, we should expect it to recede from its current position of #10 over the coming months.

-SNIP- with lower than actual Florida numbers

The CDC is using the 2020 Census Results and has the latest data for Florida. Worldometers gets its Florida data very slowly and is currently more than 1K Florida deaths behind the CDC, so I advise to choose the CDC over Worldometers for this purpose.


Snapshot as of September 16, 2021 - Deaths per 100K people

1. 307 - Mississippi
2. 305 - New Jersey
3. 286 - Louisiana
4. 271 - New York state (adding NYC + rest of NYS together and dividing by 202.01249)
5. 267 - Massachusetts
6. 265 - Arizona
6. 265 - Rhode Island
8. 262 - Alabama
9. 243 - Arkansas
10. 236 - Florida
10. 236 - Connecticut
10. 236 - South Dakota


States which are likely to be hit hardest will be the Dakotas, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, being Northern states with extraordinarily low vaccination rates. South Dakota especially is likely to surpass Florida soon.


The summer peak isn't as bad as the winter one nationwide, but it is in Florida (as well as much of the South).

Nope, they're using the 2019 estimates too.  As to Worldometer vs CDC vs WaPo yeah there is an obvious attempt to slow roll some of the data by the states.  I tend to use the higher number of the various sources.

[DINGO Joe]

Demographically, Florida is the exact type of state you'd expect to have a high level of Covid death:  it's old and pretty non-White.

But the old are relatively white and affluent

[DINGO Joe]

Florida has moved into the top ten with 237.

Ahead of it are Arkansas (245) and MA/AZ/RI/AL, all at around 265.

Florida needs about 6,500 deaths to reach 267 and enter the top 5.  If it continues as its current rate that should take about two and a half weeks.  Until then, there won't be much movement, since there is a large gap between Arkansas and those four states.

Arkansas itself is also moving up the list pretty fast at a rate of about 1 death per 100,000 people per day.  Florida's rate is about 1.6.  So it may take two weeks for Florida to even pass Arkansas.

Mississippi has now reached the same rate of increase as Florida -- it has 7x fewer deaths per day for a 7x smaller population and thus moves up the list at the same rate.  For Florida to have a chance at taking the top spot, Mississippi needs to either stop deaths, or DeSantis needs to figure out a way to kill his people even more efficiently.

Again, using 2020 Census

1--Mississippi         3112
2--New Jersey        2927
3--Louisiana           2881
4--New York           2744
5--Arizona              2728
6--Alabama            2629
7--Massachusetts    2624
8--Rhode Island      2563
9--Arkansas            2472
10--Oklahoma         2462
11--South Dakota    2368
12--Florida              2360
13--Conn                 2342
14--Georgia             2294
15--South Carolina   2269

Oklahoma has two widely different numbers reported-- a CDC numbers and a OSDH "investigation" number.  Worldometer uses the later while others use the former.  I personally view the "investigation" number as an attempt to slow roll the numbers and thus use the CDC numbers.
 

South Dakota and CT will fall behind the SEC states very soon.  It's a little more unclear how many of the SEC states will get past RI and Mass

[DINGO Joe]

I did want to give a little caveat to a statement I made earlier, besides Tennessee there is a chance that WV rises above the national average partly because their right now at a pandemic peak and poorly vaccinated and partly because they have an extremely archaic death certificate process that is not electronic and honest to god uses typewriters, so they can periodically shoot out a batch of old deaths that were Covid upon further review.

[DINGO Joe]

As the last wave subsides, here's an update.

1--Mississippi    3374
2--Louisiana      3105
3--Alabama       3061
4--New Jersey   3000
5--Arizona         2910
6--New York      2807
7--Oklahoma     2803
8--Arkansas       2741
9--Florida          2717
10-Mass            2690
11-Georgia        2662
12-SC               2632
13--RI               2618
14--SD              2501
15--Indiana       2427
16--Nevada       2423
17--Conn           2418
18--Texas          2418 
19--PA               2381
20--WV              2378

So, WV did rise above the national avg and has even cracked the top 20 and given deathmentum and a rather slow reporting process, it could crack the top 15 which is impressive for a state that was almost entirely untouched by the first wave of Covid.  At the end of May 2020, Conn had 4000 Covid death out of 8700 for the whole pandemic while WV had a whopping 87 out of 4300 for the pandemic.

Wouldn't expect too much change over the next few weeks in the rankings, AZ might get past NY and GA and SC should knock Mass out of the top 10.  Beyond the top 20, Idaho and Montana have been adding the most per capita but aren't a threat for the top 20
   

[DINGO Joe]

The CDC besides providing Covid death data also provides excess death data which is the percentage of deaths a state reports  compared to the average number of deaths from 2017-19.  Ideally, you'd expect that excess deaths and covid deaths by state would roughly correlate, but it's not that simple. 

For the US in 2020 the death rate was 119% of expected deaths and it's currently at 94% for 2021 (that's for all of 2021 not just to the same point last year)

So New Jersey's numbers are 128/89  which shows that they were hard hit last year, but have greatly improved vs US average this year

Florida is 117/104 so slightly better than average last year and much worse than average this year

So in these cases excess deaths and Covid ranking do closely follow their excess deaths.

However, look at Arizona 129/106  and Massachusetts 115/84  Arizona sucks both years and in fact seems likely to have the highest excess death rate over the two years of any state, meanwhile Massachusetts was better than avg last year and way better this year, but only recently was passed by Arizona for Covid deaths.  So, that doesn't correlate real well.  It should be noted that per capita, Massachusetts has administered 5X as many Covid test as Arizona, so it's seems likely that Arizona's number of covid deaths is substantially undercounted and in fact Arizona may really rival or exceed Mississippi for #1.   Texas has some pretty suspect numbers too 124/106. 

Full data is here

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm

When looking at 2021 you have to be careful because some states (especially NC and WV) report slower than others. 

[DINGO Joe]

I think Alabama has a shot at the top spot.

They try real hard but don't think they can get past MS and LA

Kudos to Grumps for having faith in Alabama, I still don't think they can chased down Mississippi but they have edged past Louisiana for #2.  Right now, the only state that seems to have a chance of getting past Louisiana for the 3rd spot is Arizona which just can't seem to stop running  hot.

[DINGO Joe]

Nov 14th update


1--Mississippi     3440
2--Alabama        3181
3--Louisiana       3153
4--New Jersey    3033
5--Arizona          3028
6--Oklahoma      2933
7--New York       2845
8--Arkansas        2842
9--Florida           2818
10--Georgia        2788
11-S Carolina      2732
12--Mass            2725
13--R.I               2637
14--S. Dakota     2572
15--WV               2571
16--Indiana         2518
17--Nevada         2515
18--Texas            2512
19--Pennsylvania  2492
20--New Mexico    2441
21--Connecticut    2441
22--Tennessee      2412

Arizona will knock NJ down to #5 this week and WV keeps marching up the ranks.  Both states are still relatively hot, especially Arizona.  Arizona is pretty amazing, arguably the worst at dealing with COVID.  Don't think they can catch Mississippi but Louisiana and Alabama aren't out the question.  Beyond the upper tier, the fast movers have been the smaller mountain states, Montana, Idaho and Wyoming.  ND edged back above the national average and Montana looks likely to get there too for the first time.  As has been noted, the pandemic has gotten whiter and more rural as it's gone along this year.

[DINGO Joe]

A semi-occasional update.

1--Mississippi   3478
2--Alabama      3221
3--Louisiana     3186
4--Arizona        3158
5--New Jersey  3064   
6--Oklahoma    3038
7--Arkansas      2907     
8--New York     2885
9--Florida         2869
10--Georgia      2865
11--SC             2797
12--WV            2783
13--Mass          2772
14--RI              2690
15--SD             2673
16--PA              2612
17--IN              2614
18--NV             2612
19- MI              2604
20--MT             2554
21--NM             2552
22-28  TX, TN, MO, ND, CT, KY, WY

At one point there were only 22 states above the national avg and now there are 28 as the pandemic has rolled thru more rural regions and the unvaxxed.  I can remember when WV was below CA but now it's a lock to break into the top 10.  Arizona continues to amaze and looks like it'll pass Louisiana for #3 this week.  Cases have risen quite a bit in Appalachia and the Rust Belt, but aside from the special case of WV it'll be hard for any of them to break the Southern lock on the Top 10.