On March 11, the World Health Organization declared the spread of the novel coronavirus a pandemic. COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019) is the official name for the illness caused by the novel coronavirus that emerged in Wuhan, China in late 2019.
For the latest guidance and information, we strongly recommend relying on the following for accurate information:
- The CDC’s page about the Coronavirus Disease 2019
- The World Health Organization's (WHO) page about COVID-19
- The Iowa Department of Public Health
Symptoms of COVID-19 can include fever, runny nose, cough and breathing trouble. Most individuals develop mild reactions to the virus. Some people, usually those with other medical complications, develop more severe symptoms, including pneumonia.
How cases are trending across the country
Throughout the U.S., hospitals and health care workers are tracking the skyrocketing number of new coronavirus cases in their communities and bracing for a flood of patients to come in the wake of those infections. Already, seriously ill COVID-19 patients are starting to fill up hospital beds at unsustainable rates.
U.S. hospitalizations overall have nearly doubled since late September. As of Monday more than 56,000 COVID-19 patients were hospitalized around the country, approaching the highs of the midsummer and spring surges.
In the graphics below, explore the trend in new cases in your state to see whether cases are rising, falling or staying level. You can view the data via a heat map (immediately below), a curve chart and a table with detailson each state's case trends over the last three weeks. Or to see states' total cases and deaths on a map, click here.
The following chart displays states' trends in new daily case counts, total cases, and per capita totals. To compare state outbreaks, the trend lines for average new daily cases are graphed against each state's total case count to date. This highlights a state's daily growth relative to the overall size of its outbreak.
The coronavirus has hit some states much harder than others. For much of the pandemic, a large share of U.S. cases have been centered around New York City. As of early June, New York state, Connecticut and New Jersey accounted for about 30% of total cases in the nation and 42% of deaths, although new cases have been dropping in these three states. Across the country, other large, populous states such as California, Illinois and Texas have high totals as well.
Some smaller states have had a heavy burden of disease relative to their population size, such as Nebraska and Iowa, which have high case counts per capita, and Louisiana and Michigan which have a high death count per capita.
Explore the map below to see totals and per capita figures around the country.
How severe is the pandemic where you live?
How severe is the spread of COVID-19 in your community? If you're confused, you're not alone. Though state and local dashboards provide lots of numbers, from case counts to deaths, it's often unclear how to interpret them — and hard to compare them to other places.
The Harvard Global Health Institute is leading a collaboration of top scientists at institutions around the country who have joined forces to create a unified set of metrics for the coronavirus pandemic.
The map below allows people to check the state or the county where they live and see a COVID-19 risk rating of green, yellow, orange or red. The risk levels are based upon the number of new daily cases per 100,000 people. A community that has fewer than one daily new case per 100,000 is green. One to 9 is yellow; between 10 and 24 is orange; and 25 and above puts you in the red.
