Outside MA: CA, FL, IL, NC, NY, PA, TX and D.C. - Pre-Memorial Day Weekend

Periodically, I look at states and countries where I have friends and/or family to see how those states are doing with COVID-19 cases. I always take a look at the population size of the state as well so that the comparison I'm making to MA numbers is somewhat valid.

It's been a few months now so I'm going through all the US states I've been looking at for a pre-Memorial Day weekend update and this is the second of the two reviews.

For a quick comparison, Massachusetts had the following pattern:

• First wave peaked at 35.8 cases per day per 100,000
• In the summer we got down to 2.7 for 5-July-2020 but then slowly crept back up for the remainder of the summer and in the fall saw those cases pick up.
• We had our "fall" peak at 73 cases on 9-Dec-2020, followed by a brief decline down to 56 for 25-Dec-2020 and then a rapid climb up to 94 for 12-Jan-2021.
• We worked our numbers down to 20.3 for early March but then brought those numbers back up to 34 by 11-Apr-2021.
• We now sit at 13.5 cases per day per 100,000 with 51.7% of our population fully vaccinated.

California did really well in the first 3/4 of the year, having a first wave reaching 24.5 cases per day per 100,000 people on 26-Jul-2020 and then dipping down to have a second surge to 23.8 on 15-Aug-2020.  They then fought down to a valley going as low as 8.4 cases per day per 100,000 on 13-Sep-2020 and staying below 15 through 9-Nov-2020.  At that point they started a quick climb, though, reaching a whopping 113 case per day per 100,000 for 22-Dec-2020. They then bounced around between 92 and 106 for a bit and reached 112 on 14-Jan-2021.  From there, however, they really took things seriously and drove cases down even more steeply than they had risen in Nov/Dec and reached below 14 before the end of February 2021.  From there they've seen a slow decline in cases through mid-May, only seeing in recent days a slight uptick from their low of only 3 cases per day per 100,000 the days leading up to 23-May-2021 to now an average of 4.3.... still not bad and it's far too early to tell if this is just a small blip or a new trend.  Their current vaccination rate is 42.2% which isn't nearly as high as the New England states but is reasonable based on the national average of 40.4 and higher than several of the states we'll be reviewing next.

Florida peaked way higher than anybody I've seen in the USA in my reviews for the spring 2020 wave, reaching 55 cases per day per 100,000 for 17-Jul-2020.  They then stopped short of reducing their cases to below 10 cases per day per 100,000 people in the summer/early fall.  They hovered between 10.5 and 14 cases per day per 100,000 from 8-Sep-2020 through 16-Oct-2020 but then started a gradual increase through 22-Dec-2020 and reached 52.7 with this gradual wave... and while they then decreased for a couple days, lowering to 44 for 25-Dec-2020, they then sharply climbed to 83.8 for 8-Jan-2021.  They finally took things seriously it seems and dropped to 28.6 by 18-Feb-2021 but then let off the pressure and only fell another 8 cases per day per 100,000 to 20.9 in the following month before seeing another gradual increase which peaked on 19-Apr-2021 with 31.5 cases per day per 100,000.  They've since been on a gradual decline of cases, having now reached 10.6.... maybe they can get below 10 this summer?  They currently have a vaccination rate of 38.2%.

Illinois saw a first wave reaching 20 cases per 100,000 at the start of May and took a couple weeks to start reducing.  They managed to get down to 5 in the middle of June, which isn't bad.  Massachusetts and so many others, they then steadily increased through the rest of the summer.  Their steep increase came in October and continued to mid-November.  At mid-October they were at 26 cases per 100,000 but a month later, they were at 98 on 17-Nov-2020.  They then proceeded to slightly less sharply cut those cases down, with a slight bump in early December, but getting all the way down to 38.2 for 1-Jan-2021.  A week later they were back up to 60.5 but then continued their steep decline in cases.  They started to slow that decline in late Feb, only getting from a 7-day average of 14.2 on 20-Feb-2021 to 12.3 a month later on 17-Mar-2021.  Unsurprisingly, this slow down of decline was followed by increasing cases, getting back up to 26 cases per day per 100,000 the 7 days leading to 13-Apr-2021.  But since then they've been again on a stead decline, reaching 8.3 today.  They currently have a vaccination rate of 39.3%.

New York got off to a pretty awful start, skyrocketing up to 50.8 cases per day per 100,000 on 10-Apr-2020 after just a month of spread!  They responded pretty well though, dropping those cases like a stone and reaching just 3.8 on 14-Jun-2020 before somewhat stalling out.  They would stay at 3-4 cases per day per 100,000 until 17-Sep-2020 and from there would see a shallow increase until they reached 11.5 on 5-Nov-2020 and saw that increase steepen.  Having seen a good summer, they appear to have been unwilling to adjust the plan as cases rose and it wasn't until 13-Jan-2021 and reaching the 7-day average of 84.4 cases per day per 100,000 that they turned things around and once more dropped the spread significantly.  They got it down to 44.3 by 8-Feb-2021 and then slowed their decline.  On 23-Mar-2021 they reached 28.9 and something clearly had happened because they saw the steepest increase they had seen yet at that point, reaching 51.6 by just 6 days later on 29-Mar-2021.  Since then they have returned to late-January-2021 form, however, and have dropped their numbers back down to just 5.8.  They are just barely behind the top vaccination rate in this list (apart from MA) at 45.9%.

North Carolina saw a steady increase all the way into July, finally "peaking" in mid July at 19 cases per day per 100,000.  I put that in quotes because I wouldn't say they drove the cases down... a month and a half later, at the start of Sep, they stopped reducing cases, having reached 11 cases per day per 100,000.  They then saw a steady increase again all the way through 23-Dec-2020 when they reached a 7-day average of 60 cases per day per 100,000.  They sharply reduced cases very briefly, reaching 50.7 by 30-Dec-2020, but then sharply returned to record numbers and reached 83 for 8-Jan-2021.  They turned things around at that point and got down to 14.6 in mid-March before stalling out their progress and mulling around 14.6-19.5 through 15-Apr-2021.  After that, they started a slight decline and have made it to 7.8 today.  They're vaccination rate has reached 35.7%.  

Pennsylvania started by reaching 13 cases per 100,000 population in its first wave in the very beginning of April and then driving their cases down to 3 near the middle of June.  Let's take a moment to acknowledge that both of these numbers are super-low in comparison to many states.  They then steadily increased until early October when that slow increase started to pick up a bit, dramatically sky rocketing in November to reach 82 for 16-Dec-2020.  They then dropped like a stone to 55.6 over the course of 2 weeks before returning to increasing cases to 68.3 for 11-Jan-2021.  They then appear to have returned to being serious and got down to 20.8 before nearly stalling out.  Their bottom that time would be on 2-Apr-2021 when they reached 14.6.  They rose quickly, though not as quickly as in Nov/Dec the prior year, and reached 38.6 for 17-Apr-2021.  Since then they've been rather quickly decreasing their cases, reaching 10.5 today.  Their vaccination rate is the second highest on this list of review (aside from MA) at 42.7%.

Texas saw its first wave peak on 19-Jul-2020 with 36 cases per day per 100,000.  They then spent the next couple months very very slowly decreasing their case count, bottoming out at 11.2 on 12-Sep-2020.  That's a summer of cases being in the double-digits.  From that point to 17-Dec-2020 they saw a relatively stable climb reaching 73 cases per day per 100,000.  They finally took things seriously for all of a week and got the spread down to 41 cases per day per 100,000 for 26-Dec-2020... and then of course got back to increasing just rapidly getting back to 78.8 by 9-Jan-2021.  They hovered in that area until 18-Jan-2021 and then played at taking things seriously, getting down to 60 for 24-Jan-2021 and back up to 71 for 1-Feb-2021.  Then they made a real true effort in February and managed to get down to 14.5 cases per day per 100,000 for 20-Feb-2021.  They resurged briefly, reaching 27.5 for 27-Feb-2021 but then have since been on a slow but steady decline, reaching just 6 cases per day per 100,000 today.  Their vaccination rate is the smallest in this review at 34.8%.

Washington D.C. has done its citizenry prouder than anybody on this list!  Sure, they cam in just higher than California for the first half of last year, reaching 28 cases per day per 100,000 peak on 6-May-2020, followed by only declining to 5.1 on 21-Jun-2020 before stalling out for a couple weeks and starting to increase starting 7-Jul-2020, reaching a mid-summer high of 9.4-10.7 from 21-Jul-2020 through 16-Aug-2020.  They then dropped slowly to 5.5 on 4-Oct-2020 before increasing again with the rest of the country to new high of 41.4 on 9-Dec-2020.  They fell again to 27.4 for 25-Dec-2020 before increasing to an all-time high of just 46.5.  Never even reaching 50 is saying something in the US.  They returned to dropping their spread and reached just 17.2 by 17-Feb and hovered around there until 19-Apr-2021 when they returned to reducing their case counts.  They have today reached just 3.8 cases per day per 100,000!  They have a vaccination rate of 46% which is the highest of any state reviewed today (discounting MA)

Summary:

• California started last year off strong but failed to respond in November/December and only in mid-January did they start to get things under control.  They're doing quite well now but may be seeing cases come back having risen from 3 to 4.3 cases per day per 100,000 in the last week.  They're just above the national average for the vaccination rate, 42.2% (vs national of 40.4%).
• Florida did pretty poorly over the summer but did not do as poorly as California over the winter... but then they didn't do as well with dropping the cases after January and are not doing great with getting people vaccinated.  They currently have just over 10 cases per day per 100,000 and only 38.2% of the populace are vaccinated. 
• After a pretty good spring and summer, Illinois saw their numbers increase in dramatic fashion in the fall, reaching numbers nearly comparable, but not quite to California's.  They managed to get their numbers down again and are doing alright, comparatively to other states, with 8.3 cases per day per 100,000 and are just under the national average for vaccination at 39.3%.
• New York introduced the US to COVID-19 but then showed us how to fight it, though we all ignored them.  They then ignored their increasing cases as many other states did and saw a huge winter wave.  With that said, once they started paying attention, they remembered the lessons they had learned from the spring and are now doing better than most with just 5.8 cases per day per 100,000 and have done better than many with vaccinations, having reached 45.9%
• North Carolina essentially had no spring 2020 wave but that didn't stop them from joining the rest of the county for the winter wave.  They fought it off though and drover their numbers down initially, stabilized in March-April and then have slowly but steadily declined to the 7.8 cases per day per 100,000 we see today.  Their vaccination rate is lower than the national average at just 35.7%... which is only higher than 1 other state on this list and do you really want to be compared to Texas in this?
• Pennsylvania did a really decent job in the spring of 2020 but couldn't avoid the winter wave.  They did, however, take things pretty seriously in the new year and, with some bumps along the way, have reached 10.5 cases per day per 100,000.  Their vaccination rate is just a bit higher than Californias at 42.7%
• Texas, similar to Florida, did a bad job over the summer and, after giving up on their lackluster attempt to drive down cases, saw a familiar winter wave, though not as high as some states saw.  They remained high through the start of November but then managed to get cases down in truth and are now at just 6 cases per day per 100,000 with the lowest vaccination rate in this review of just 34.8%.
• Washington D.C. is the bright spot of the bunch!  They have yet to see a 7-day period with an average of 50 cases per day per 100,000 and are doing better than almost anybody with just 3.8 cases per day per 100,000 and a vaccination rate of 46%.

Stay safe. Stay sane. Stay informed.