As of March 10, 2023, the state with the highest rate of COVID-19 cases was Rhode Island followed by Alaska. Around 103.9 million cases have been reported across the United States, with the states of California, Texas, and Florida reporting the highest numbers of infections.

From an epidemic to a pandemic The World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak as a pandemic on March 11, 2020. The term pandemic refers to multiple outbreaks of an infectious illness threatening multiple parts of the world at the same time; when the transmission is this widespread, it can no longer be traced back to the country where it originated. The number of COVID-19 cases worldwide is roughly 683 million, and it has affected almost every country in the world.

The symptoms and those who are most at risk Most people who contract the virus will suffer only mild symptoms, such as a cough, a cold, or a high temperature. However, in more severe cases, the infection can cause breathing difficulties and even pneumonia. Those at higher risk include older persons and people with pre-existing medical conditions, including diabetes, heart disease, and lung disease. Those aged 85 years and older have accounted for around 27 percent of all COVID deaths in the United States, although this age group makes up just two percent of the total population

As of March 10, 2023, the state with the highest number of COVID-19 cases was California. Almost 104 million cases have been reported across the United States, with the states of California, Texas, and Florida reporting the highest numbers.

From an epidemic to a pandemic The World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11, 2020. The term pandemic refers to multiple outbreaks of an infectious illness threatening multiple parts of the world at the same time. When the transmission is this widespread, it can no longer be traced back to the country where it originated. The number of COVID-19 cases worldwide has now reached over 669 million.

The symptoms and those who are most at risk Most people who contract the virus will suffer only mild symptoms, such as a cough, a cold, or a high temperature. However, in more severe cases, the infection can cause breathing difficulties and even pneumonia. Those at higher risk include older persons and people with pre-existing medical conditions, including diabetes, heart disease, and lung disease. People aged 85 years and older have accounted for around 27 percent of all COVID-19 deaths in the United States, although this age group makes up just two percent of the U.S. population

The New York Times is releasing a series of data files with cumulative counts of coronavirus cases in the United States, at the state and county level, over time. We are compiling this time series data from state and local governments and health departments in an attempt to provide a complete record of the ongoing outbreak.

Since late January, The Times has tracked cases of coronavirus in real time as they were identified after testing. Because of the widespread shortage of testing, however, the data is necessarily limited in the picture it presents of the outbreak.

We have used this data to power our maps and reporting tracking the outbreak, and it is now being made available to the public in response to requests from researchers, scientists and government officials who would like access to the data to better understand the outbreak.

The data begins with the first reported coronavirus case in Washington State on Jan. 21, 2020. We will publish regular updates to the data in this repository.

Reporting of new Aggregate Case and Death Count data was discontinued May 11, 2023, with the expiration of the COVID-19 public health emergency declaration. This dataset will receive a final update on June 1, 2023, to reconcile historical data through May 10, 2023, and will remain publicly available.

Aggregate Data Collection Process Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, data have been gathered through a robust process with the following steps:

• A CDC data team reviews and validates the information obtained from jurisdictions’ state and local websites via an overnight data review process.
• If more than one official county data source exists, CDC uses a comprehensive data selection process comparing each official county data source, and takes the highest case and death counts respectively, unless otherwise specified by the state.
• CDC compiles these data and posts the finalized information on COVID Data Tracker.
• County level data is aggregated to obtain state and territory specific totals.

This process is collaborative, with CDC and jurisdictions working together to ensure the accuracy of COVID-19 case and death numbers. County counts provide the most up-to-date numbers on cases and deaths by report date. CDC may retrospectively update counts to correct data quality issues.

Methodology Changes Several differences exist between the current, weekly-updated dataset and the archived version:

• Source: The current Weekly-Updated Version is based on county-level aggregate count data, while the Archived Version is based on State-level aggregate count data.
• Confirmed/Probable Cases/Death breakdown:  While the probable cases and deaths are included in the total case and total death counts in both versions (if applicable), they were reported separately from the confirmed cases and deaths by jurisdiction in the Archived Version.  In the current Weekly-Updated Version, the counts by jurisdiction are not reported by confirmed or probable status (See Confirmed and Probable Counts section for more detail).
• Time Series Frequency: The current Weekly-Updated Version contains weekly time series data (i.e., one record per week per jurisdiction), while the Archived Version contains daily time series data (i.e., one record per day per jurisdiction).
• Update Frequency: The current Weekly-Updated Version is updated weekly, while the Archived Version was updated twice daily up to October 20, 2022.

Important note: The counts reflected during a given time period in this dataset may not match the counts reflected for the same time period in the archived dataset noted above. Discrepancies may exist due to differences between county and state COVID-19 case surveillance and reconciliation efforts.

Confirmed and Probable Counts In this dataset, counts by jurisdiction are not displayed by confirmed or probable status. Instead, confirmed and probable cases and deaths are included in the Total Cases and Total Deaths columns, when available. Not all jurisdictions report probable cases and deaths to CDC.* Confirmed and probable case definition criteria are described here:

Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (ymaws.com).

Deaths CDC reports death data on other sections of the website: CDC COVID Data Tracker: Home, CDC COVID Data Tracker: Cases, Deaths, and Testing, and NCHS Provisional Death Counts. Information presented on the COVID Data Tracker pages is based on the same source (to

As of March 10, 2023, the death rate from COVID-19 in the state of New York was 397 per 100,000 people. New York is one of the states with the highest number of COVID-19 cases.

Reporting of Aggregate Case and Death Count data was discontinued May 11, 2023, with the expiration of the COVID-19 public health emergency declaration. Although these data will continue to be publicly available, this dataset will no longer be updated.

This archived public use dataset has 11 data elements reflecting United States COVID-19 community levels for all available counties.

The COVID-19 community levels were developed using a combination of three metrics — new COVID-19 admissions per 100,000 population in the past 7 days, the percent of staffed inpatient beds occupied by COVID-19 patients, and total new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population in the past 7 days. The COVID-19 community level was determined by the higher of the new admissions and inpatient beds metrics, based on the current level of new cases per 100,000 population in the past 7 days. New COVID-19 admissions and the percent of staffed inpatient beds occupied represent the current potential for strain on the health system. Data on new cases acts as an early warning indicator of potential increases in health system strain in the event of a COVID-19 surge.

Using these data, the COVID-19 community level was classified as low, medium, or high.

COVID-19 Community Levels were used to help communities and individuals make decisions based on their local context and their unique needs. Community vaccination coverage and other local information, like early alerts from surveillance, such as through wastewater or the number of emergency department visits for COVID-19, when available, can also inform decision making for health officials and individuals.

For the most accurate and up-to-date data for any county or state, visit the relevant health department website. COVID Data Tracker may display data that differ from state and local websites. This can be due to differences in how data were collected, how metrics were calculated, or the timing of web updates.

Archived Data Notes:

This dataset was renamed from "United States COVID-19 Community Levels by County as Originally Posted" to "United States COVID-19 Community Levels by County" on March 31, 2022.

March 31, 2022: Column name for county population was changed to “county_population”. No change was made to the data points previous released.

March 31, 2022: New column, “health_service_area_population”, was added to the dataset to denote the total population in the designated Health Service Area based on 2019 Census estimate.

March 31, 2022: FIPS codes for territories American Samoa, Guam, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and United States Virgin Islands were re-formatted to 5-digit numeric for records released on 3/3/2022 to be consistent with other records in the dataset.

March 31, 2022: Changes were made to the text fields in variables “county”, “state”, and “health_service_area” so the formats are consistent across releases.

March 31, 2022: The “%” sign was removed from the text field in column “covid_inpatient_bed_utilization”. No change was made to the data. As indicated in the column description, values in this column represent the percentage of staffed inpatient beds occupied by COVID-19 patients (7-day average).

March 31, 2022: Data values for columns, “county_population”, “health_service_area_number”, and “health_service_area” were backfilled for records released on 2/24/2022. These columns were added since the week of 3/3/2022, thus the values were previously missing for records released the week prior.

April 7, 2022: Updates made to data released on 3/24/2022 for Guam, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and United States Virgin Islands to correct a data mapping error.

April 21, 2022: COVID-19 Community Level (CCL) data released for counties in Nebraska for the week of April 21, 2022 have 3 counties identified in the high category and 37 in the medium category. CDC has been working with state officials t

As of March 10, 2023, there have been 1.1 million deaths related to COVID-19 in the United States. There have been 101,159 deaths in the state of California, more than any other state in the country – California is also the state with the highest number of COVID-19 cases.

The vaccine rollout in the U.S. Since the start of the pandemic, the world has eagerly awaited the arrival of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine. In the United States, the immunization campaign started in mid-December 2020 following the approval of a vaccine jointly developed by Pfizer and BioNTech. As of March 22, 2023, the number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the U.S. had reached roughly 673 million. The states with the highest number of vaccines administered are California, Texas, and New York.

Vaccines achieved due to work of research groups Chinese authorities initially shared the genetic sequence to the novel coronavirus in January 2020, allowing research groups to start studying how it invades human cells. The surface of the virus is covered with spike proteins, which enable it to bind to human cells. Once attached, the virus can enter the cells and start to make people ill. These spikes were of particular interest to vaccine manufacturers because they hold the key to preventing viral entry.

This public use dataset has 11 data elements reflecting United States COVID-19 community levels for all available counties. This dataset contains the same values used to display information available on the COVID Data Tracker at: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#county-view?list_select_state=all_states&list_select_county=all_counties&data-type=CommunityLevels The data are updated weekly.

CDC looks at the combination of three metrics — new COVID-19 admissions per 100,000 population in the past 7 days, the percent of staffed inpatient beds occupied by COVID-19 patients, and total new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population in the past 7 days — to determine the COVID-19 community level. The COVID-19 community level is determined by the higher of the new admissions and inpatient beds metrics, based on the current level of new cases per 100,000 population in the past 7 days. New COVID-19 admissions and the percent of staffed inpatient beds occupied represent the current potential for strain on the health system. Data on new cases acts as an early warning indicator of potential increases in health system strain in the event of a COVID-19 surge. Using these data, the COVID-19 community level is classified as low, medium, or high. COVID-19 Community Levels can help communities and individuals make decisions based on their local context and their unique needs. Community vaccination coverage and other local information, like early alerts from surveillance, such as through wastewater or the number of emergency department visits for COVID-19, when available, can also inform decision making for health officials and individuals.

See https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/community-levels.html for more information.

For the most accurate and up-to-date data for any county or state, visit the relevant health department website. COVID Data Tracker may display data that differ from state and local websites. This can be due to differences in how data were collected, how metrics were calculated, or the timing of web updates.

For more details on the Minnesota Department of Health COVID-19 thresholds, see COVID-19 Public Health Risk Measures: Data Notes (Updated 4/13/22). https://mn.gov/covid19/assets/phri_tcm1148-434773.pdf

Note: This dataset was renamed from "United States COVID-19 Community Levels by County as Originally Posted" to "United States COVID-19 Community Levels by County" on March 31, 2022. March 31, 2022: Column name for county population was changed to “county_population”. No change was made to the data points previous released. March 31, 2022: New column, “health_service_area_population”, was added to the dataset to denote the total population in the designated Health Service Area based on 2019 Census estimate. March 31, 2022: FIPS codes for territories American Samoa, Guam, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and United States Virgin Islands were re-formatted to 5-digit numeric for records released on 3/3/2022 to be consistent with other records in the dataset. March 31, 2022: Changes were made to the text fields in variables “county”, “state”, and “health_service_area” so the formats are consistent across releases. March 31, 2022: The “%” sign was removed from the text field in column “covid_inpatient_bed_utilization”. No change was made to the data. As indicated in the column description, values in this column represent the percentage of staffed inpatient beds occupied by COVID-19 patients (7-day average). March 31, 2022: Data values for columns, “county_population”, “health_service_area_number”, and “health_service_area” were backfilled for records released on 2/24/2022. These columns were added since the week of 3/3/2022, thus the values were previously missing for records released the week prior. April 7, 2022: Updates made to data released on 3/24/2022 for Guam, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and United States Virgin Islands to correct a data mapping error.

Announcement Beginning October 20, 2022, CDC will report and publish aggregate case and death data from jurisdictional and state partners on a weekly basis rather than daily. As a result, community transmission levels data reported on data.cdc.gov will be updated weekly on Thursdays, typically by 8 PM ET, instead of daily. This public use dataset has 7 data elements reflecting historical data for community transmission levels for all available counties. This dataset contains historical data for the county level of community transmission and includes updated data submitted by states and jurisdictions. Each day, the dataset is appended to contain the most recent day's data. This dataset includes data from January 1, 2021. Transmission level is set to low, moderate, substantial, or high using the calculation rules below. Currently, CDC provides the public with two versions of COVID-19 county-level community transmission level data: this dataset with the levels for each county from January 1, 2021 (Historical Changes dataset) and a dataset with the levels as originally posted (Originally Posted dataset), updated daily with the most recent day’s data. Methods for calculating county level of community transmission indicator The County Level of Community Transmission indicator uses two metrics: (1) total new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 persons in the last 7 days and (2) percentage of positive SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic nucleic acid amplification tests (NAAT) in the last 7 days. For each of these metrics, CDC classifies transmission values as low, moderate, substantial, or high (below and here). If the values for each of these two metrics differ (e.g., one indicates moderate and the other low), then the higher of the two should be used for decision-making. CDC core metrics of and thresholds for community transmission levels of SARS-CoV-2 Total New Case Rate Metric: "New cases per 100,000 persons in the past 7 days" is calculated by adding the number of new cases in the county (or other administrative level) in the last 7 days divided by the population in the county (or other administrative level) and multiplying by 100,000. "New cases per 100,000 persons in the past 7 days" is considered to have transmission level of Low (0-9.99); Moderate (10.00-49.99); Substantial (50.00-99.99); and High (greater than or equal to 100.00). Test Percent Positivity Metric: "Percentage of positive NAAT in the past 7 days" is calculated by dividing the number of positive tests in the county (or other administrative level) during the last 7 days by the total number of tests resulted over the last 7 days. "Percentage of positive NAAT in the past 7 days" is considered to have transmission level of Low (less than 5.00); Moderate (5.00-7.99); Substantial (8.00-9.99); and High (greater than or equal to 10.00). If the two metrics suggest different transmission levels, the higher level is selected. If one metric is missing, the other metric is used for the indicator. Transmission categories include: Low Transmission Threshold: Counties with fewer than 10 total cases per 100,000 population in the past 7 days, and a NAAT percent test positivity in the past 7 days below 5%; Moderate Transmission Threshold: Counties with 10-49 total cases per 100,000 population in the past 7 days or a NAAT test percent positivity in the past 7 days of 5.0-7.99%; Substantial Transmission Threshold: Counties with 50-99 total cases per 100,000 population in the past 7 days or a NAAT test percent positivity in the past 7 days of 8.0-9.99%; High Transmission Threshold: Counties with 100

Updates

• Notice of data discontinuation: Since the start of the pandemic, AP has reported case and death counts from data provided by Johns Hopkins University. Johns Hopkins University has announced that they will stop their daily data collection efforts after March 10. As Johns Hopkins stops providing data, the AP will also stop collecting daily numbers for COVID cases and deaths. The HHS and CDC now collect and visualize key metrics for the pandemic. AP advises using those resources when reporting on the pandemic going forward.

  • CDC Weekly case and death counts (national and state level)
  • CDC County level cases and deaths
  • HHS New hospital admissions
  • CDC NowCast COVID variant proportions (national and regional level)

• April 9, 2020

  • The population estimate data for New York County, NY has been updated to include all five New York City counties (Kings County, Queens County, Bronx County, Richmond County and New York County). This has been done to match the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 data, which aggregates counts for the five New York City counties to New York County.

• April 20, 2020

  • Johns Hopkins death totals in the US now include confirmed and probable deaths in accordance with CDC guidelines as of April 14. One significant result of this change was an increase of more than 3,700 deaths in the New York City count. This change will likely result in increases for death counts elsewhere as well. The AP does not alter the Johns Hopkins source data, so probable deaths are included in this dataset as well.

• April 29, 2020

  • The AP is now providing timeseries data for counts of COVID-19 cases and deaths. The raw counts are provided here unaltered, along with a population column with Census ACS-5 estimates and calculated daily case and death rates per 100,000 people. Please read the updated caveats section for more information.

• September 1st, 2020

  • Johns Hopkins is now providing counts for the five New York City counties individually.

• February 12, 2021

  • The Ohio Department of Health recently announced that as many as 4,000 COVID-19 deaths may have been underreported through the state’s reporting system, and that the "daily reported death counts will be high for a two to three-day period."
  • Because deaths data will be anomalous for consecutive days, we have chosen to freeze Ohio's rolling average for daily deaths at the last valid measure until Johns Hopkins is able to back-distribute the data. The raw daily death counts, as reported by Johns Hopkins and including the backlogged death data, will still be present in the new_deaths column.

• February 16, 2021

  - Johns Hopkins has reconciled Ohio's historical deaths data with the state.

  Overview

The AP is using data collected by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering as our source for outbreak caseloads and death counts for the United States and globally.

The Hopkins data is available at the county level in the United States. The AP has paired this data with population figures and county rural/urban designations, and has calculated caseload and death rates per 100,000 people. Be aware that caseloads may reflect the availability of tests -- and the ability to turn around test results quickly -- rather than actual disease spread or true infection rates.

This data is from the Hopkins dashboard that is updated regularly throughout the day. Like all organizations dealing with data, Hopkins is constantly refining and cleaning up their feed, so there may be brief moments where data does not appear correctly. At this link, you’ll find the Hopkins daily data reports, and a clean version of their feed.

The AP is updating this dataset hourly at 45 minutes past the hour.

To learn more about AP's data journalism capabilities for publishers, corporations and financial institutions, go here or email kromano@ap.org.

Queries

Use AP's queries to filter the data or to join to other datasets we've made available to help cover the coronavirus pandemic

• Filter cases by state here

• Rank states by their status as current hotspots. Calculates the 7-day rolling average of new cases per capita in each state: https://data.world/associatedpress/johns-hopkins-coronavirus-case-tracker/workspace/query?queryid=481e82a4-1b2f-41c2-9ea1-d91aa4b3b1ac

• Find recent hotspots within your state by running a query to calculate the 7-day rolling average of new cases by capita in each county: https://data.world/associatedpress/johns-hopkins-coronavirus-case-tracker/workspace/query?queryid=b566f1db-3231-40fe-8099-311909b7b687&showTemplatePreview=true

• Join county-level case data to an earlier dataset released by AP on local hospital capacity here. To find out more about the hospital capacity dataset, see the full details.

• Pull the 100 counties with the highest per-capita confirmed cases here

• Rank all the counties by the highest per-capita rate of new cases in the past 7 days here. Be aware that because this ranks per-capita caseloads, very small counties may rise to the very top, so take into account raw caseload figures as well.

Interactive

The AP has designed an interactive map to track COVID-19 cases reported by Johns Hopkins.

@(https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/nRyaf/15/)

Interactive Embed Code

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Caveats

• This data represents the number of cases and deaths reported by each state and has been collected by Johns Hopkins from a number of sources cited on their website.
• In some cases, deaths or cases of people who've crossed state lines -- either to receive treatment or because they became sick and couldn't return home while traveling -- are reported in a state they aren't currently in, because of state reporting rules.
• In some states, there are a number of cases not assigned to a specific county -- for those cases, the county name is "unassigned to a single county"
• This data should be credited to Johns Hopkins University's COVID-19 tracking project. The AP is simply making it available here for ease of use for reporters and members.
• Caseloads may reflect the availability of tests -- and the ability to turn around test results quickly -- rather than actual disease spread or true infection rates.
• Population estimates at the county level are drawn from 2014-18 5-year estimates from the American Community Survey.
• The Urban/Rural classification scheme is from the Center for Disease Control and Preventions's National Center for Health Statistics. It puts each county into one of six categories -- from Large Central Metro to Non-Core -- according to population and other characteristics. More details about the classifications can be found here.

Johns Hopkins timeseries data - Johns Hopkins pulls data regularly to update their dashboard. Once a day, around 8pm EDT, Johns Hopkins adds the counts for all areas they cover to the timeseries file. These counts are snapshots of the latest cumulative counts provided by the source on that day. This can lead to inconsistencies if a source updates their historical data for accuracy, either increasing or decreasing the latest cumulative count. - Johns Hopkins periodically edits their historical timeseries data for accuracy. They provide a file documenting all errors in their timeseries files that they have identified and fixed here

Attribution

This data should be credited to Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 tracking project

Note: This COVID-19 data set is no longer being updated as of December 1, 2023. Access current COVID-19 data on the CDPH respiratory virus dashboard (https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/Respiratory-Viruses/RespiratoryDashboard.aspx) or in open data format (https://data.chhs.ca.gov/dataset/respiratory-virus-dashboard-metrics).

As of August 17, 2023, data is being updated each Friday.

For death data after December 31, 2022, California uses Provisional Deaths from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) National Vital Statistics System (NVSS). Prior to January 1, 2023, death data was sourced from the COVID-19 registry. The change in data source occurred in July 2023 and was applied retroactively to all 2023 data to provide a consistent source of death data for the year of 2023.

As of May 11, 2023, data on cases, deaths, and testing is being updated each Thursday. Metrics by report date have been removed, but previous versions of files with report date metrics are archived below.

All metrics include people in state and federal prisons, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, US Marshal detention facilities, and Department of State Hospitals facilities. Members of California's tribal communities are also included.

The "Total Tests" and "Positive Tests" columns show totals based on the collection date. There is a lag between when a specimen is collected and when it is reported in this dataset. As a result, the most recent dates on the table will temporarily show NONE in the "Total Tests" and "Positive Tests" columns. This should not be interpreted as no tests being conducted on these dates. Instead, these values will be updated with the number of tests conducted as data is received.

United States COVID-19: No. of Deaths: To Date: Maryland data was reported at 18,446.000 Person in 06 May 2025. This records an increase from the previous number of 18,441.000 Person for 05 May 2025. United States COVID-19: No. of Deaths: To Date: Maryland data is updated daily, averaging 15,143.000 Person from Mar 2020 (Median) to 06 May 2025, with 1890 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 18,446.000 Person in 06 May 2025 and a record low of 0.000 Person in 27 Dec 2021. United States COVID-19: No. of Deaths: To Date: Maryland data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Maryland Department of Health. The data is categorized under High Frequency Database’s Disease Outbreaks – Table US.D001: Center for Disease Control and Prevention: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-2019). Cases data pertains to confirmed deaths only.

The counties of Trousdale and Lake – both in Tennessee – had the highest COVID-19 infection rates in the United States as of June 9, 2020. Dakota, Nobles, and Lincoln also ranked among the U.S. counties with the highest number of coronavirus cases per 100,000 people.

Coronavirus hits the East Coast In the United States, the novel coronavirus had infected around 5.4 million people and had caused nearly 170,000 deaths by mid-August 2020. The densely populated states of New York and New Jersey were at the epicenter of the outbreak in the country. New York City, which is composed of five counties, was one of the most severely impacted regions. However, the true level of transmission is likely to be much higher because many people will be asymptomatic or suffer only mild symptoms that are not diagnosed.

All states are in crisis The first coronavirus case in the U.S. was confirmed in the state of Washington in mid-January 2020. At the time, it was unclear how the virus was spreading; we now know that close contact with an infected person and breathing in their respiratory droplets is the primary mode of transmission. It is no surprise that the four states with the most coronavirus cases are those with the highest populations: New York, Texas, Florida, and California. However, Louisiana was the state with the highest COVID-19 infection rate per 100,000 people as of August 24, 2020.

After over two years of public reporting, the State Profile Report will no longer be produced and distributed after February 2023. The final release was on February 23, 2023. We want to thank everyone who contributed to the design, production, and review of this report and we hope that it provided insight into the data trends throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Data about COVID-19 will continue to be updated at CDC’s COVID Data Tracker.

The State Profile Report (SPR) is generated by the Data Strategy and Execution Workgroup in the Joint Coordination Cell, in collaboration with the White House. It is managed by an interagency team with representatives from multiple agencies and offices (including the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, and the Indian Health Service). The SPR provides easily interpretable information on key indicators for each state, down to the county level.

It is a weekly snapshot in time that:

• Focuses on recent outcomes in the last seven days and changes relative to the month prior
• Provides additional contextual information at the county level for each state, and includes national level information
• Supports rapid visual interpretation of results with color thresholds

Overview

The Marshall Project, the nonprofit investigative newsroom dedicated to the U.S. criminal justice system, has partnered with The Associated Press to compile data on the prevalence of COVID-19 infection in prisons across the country. The Associated Press is sharing this data as the most comprehensive current national source of COVID-19 outbreaks in state and federal prisons.

Lawyers, criminal justice reform advocates and families of the incarcerated have worried about what was happening in prisons across the nation as coronavirus began to take hold in the communities outside. Data collected by The Marshall Project and AP shows that hundreds of thousands of prisoners, workers, correctional officers and staff have caught the illness as prisons became the center of some of the country’s largest outbreaks. And thousands of people — most of them incarcerated — have died.

In December, as COVID-19 cases spiked across the U.S., the news organizations also shared cumulative rates of infection among prison populations, to better gauge the total effects of the pandemic on prison populations. The analysis found that by mid-December, one in five state and federal prisoners in the United States had tested positive for the coronavirus -- a rate more than four times higher than the general population.

This data, which is updated weekly, is an effort to track how those people have been affected and where the crisis has hit the hardest.

Methodology and Caveats

The data tracks the number of COVID-19 tests administered to people incarcerated in all state and federal prisons, as well as the staff in those facilities. It is collected on a weekly basis by Marshall Project and AP reporters who contact each prison agency directly and verify published figures with officials.

Each week, the reporters ask every prison agency for the total number of coronavirus tests administered to its staff members and prisoners, the cumulative number who tested positive among staff and prisoners, and the numbers of deaths for each group.

The time series data is aggregated to the system level; there is one record for each prison agency on each date of collection. Not all departments could provide data for the exact date requested, and the data indicates the date for the figures.

To estimate the rate of infection among prisoners, we collected population data for each prison system before the pandemic, roughly in mid-March, in April, June, July, August, September and October. Beginning the week of July 28, we updated all prisoner population numbers, reflecting the number of incarcerated adults in state or federal prisons. Prior to that, population figures may have included additional populations, such as prisoners housed in other facilities, which were not captured in our COVID-19 data. In states with unified prison and jail systems, we include both detainees awaiting trial and sentenced prisoners.

To estimate the rate of infection among prison employees, we collected staffing numbers for each system. Where current data was not publicly available, we acquired other numbers through our reporting, including calling agencies or from state budget documents. In six states, we were unable to find recent staffing figures: Alaska, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maryland, Montana, Utah.

To calculate the cumulative COVID-19 impact on prisoner and prison worker populations, we aggregated prisoner and staff COVID case and death data up through Dec. 15. Because population snapshots do not account for movement in and out of prisons since March, and because many systems have significantly slowed the number of new people being sent to prison, it’s difficult to estimate the total number of people who have been held in a state system since March. To be conservative, we calculated our rates of infection using the largest prisoner population snapshots we had during this time period.

As with all COVID-19 data, our understanding of the spread and impact of the virus is limited by the availability of testing. Epidemiology and public health experts say that aside from a few states that have recently begun aggressively testing in prisons, it is likely that there are more cases of COVID-19 circulating undetected in facilities. Sixteen prison systems, including the Federal Bureau of Prisons, would not release information about how many prisoners they are testing.

Corrections departments in Indiana, Kansas, Montana, North Dakota and Wisconsin report coronavirus testing and case data for juvenile facilities; West Virginia reports figures for juvenile facilities and jails. For consistency of comparison with other state prison systems, we removed those facilities from our data that had been included prior to July 28. For these states we have also removed staff data. Similarly, Pennsylvania’s coronavirus data includes testing and cases for those who have been released on parole. We removed these tests and cases for prisoners from the data prior to July 28. The staff cases remain.

About the Data

There are four tables in this data:

• covid_prison_cases.csv contains weekly time series data on tests, infections and deaths in prisons. The first dates in the table are on March 26. Any questions that a prison agency could not or would not answer are left blank.

• prison_populations.csv contains snapshots of the population of people incarcerated in each of these prison systems for whom data on COVID testing and cases are available. This varies by state and may not always be the entire number of people incarcerated in each system. In some states, it may include other populations, such as those on parole or held in state-run jails. This data is primarily for use in calculating rates of testing and infection, and we would not recommend using these numbers to compare the change in how many people are being held in each prison system.

• staff_populations.csv contains a one-time, recent snapshot of the headcount of workers for each prison agency, collected as close to April 15 as possible.

• covid_prison_rates.csv contains the rates of cases and deaths for prisoners. There is one row for every state and federal prison system and an additional row with the National totals.

Queries

The Associated Press and The Marshall Project have created several queries to help you use this data:

Get your state's prison COVID data: Provides each week's data from just your state and calculates a cases-per-100000-prisoners rate, a deaths-per-100000-prisoners rate, a cases-per-100000-workers rate and a deaths-per-100000-workers rate here

Rank all systems' most recent data by cases per 100,000 prisoners here

Find what percentage of your state's total cases and deaths -- as reported by Johns Hopkins University -- occurred within the prison system here

Attribution

In stories, attribute this data to: “According to an analysis of state prison cases by The Marshall Project, a nonprofit investigative newsroom dedicated to the U.S. criminal justice system, and The Associated Press.”

Contributors

Many reporters and editors at The Marshall Project and The Associated Press contributed to this data, including: Katie Park, Tom Meagher, Weihua Li, Gabe Isman, Cary Aspinwall, Keri Blakinger, Jake Bleiberg, Andrew R. Calderón, Maurice Chammah, Andrew DeMillo, Eli Hager, Jamiles Lartey, Claudia Lauer, Nicole Lewis, Humera Lodhi, Colleen Long, Joseph Neff, Michelle Pitcher, Alysia Santo, Beth Schwartzapfel, Damini Sharma, Colleen Slevin, Christie Thompson, Abbie VanSickle, Adria Watson, Andrew Welsh-Huggins.

Questions

If you have questions about the data, please email The Marshall Project at info+covidtracker@themarshallproject.org or file a Github issue.

To learn more about AP's data journalism capabilities for publishers, corporations and financial institutions, go here or email kromano@ap.org.

Effective June 28, 2023, this dataset will no longer be updated. Similar data are accessible from CDC WONDER (https://wonder.cdc.gov/mcd-icd10-provisional.html) Provisional count of deaths involving COVID-19 by county of occurrence, in the United States, 2020-2023.

Note: The cumulative case count for some counties (with small population) is higher than expected due to the inclusion of non-permanent residents in COVID-19 case counts.

Reporting of Aggregate Case and Death Count data was discontinued on May 11, 2023, with the expiration of the COVID-19 public health emergency declaration. Although these data will continue to be publicly available, this dataset will no longer be updated.

Aggregate Data Collection Process Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, data were reported through a robust process with the following steps:

• Aggregate county-level counts were obtained indirectly, via automated overnight web collection, or directly, via a data submission process.
• If more than one official county data source existed, CDC used a comprehensive data selection process comparing each official county data source to retrieve the highest case and death counts, unless otherwise specified by the state.
• A CDC data team reviewed counts for congruency prior to integration. CDC routinely compiled these data and post the finalized information on COVID Data Tracker.
• Cases and deaths are based on date of report and not on the date of symptom onset. CDC calculates rates in this data by using population estimates provided by the US Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (2019 Vintage).
• COVID-19 aggregate case and death data were organized in a time series that includes cumulative number of cases and deaths as reported by a jurisdiction on a given date. New case and death counts were calculated as the week-to-week change in reported cumulative cases and deaths (i.e., newly reported cases and deaths = cumulative number of cases/deaths reported this week minus the cumulative total reported the week before.

This process was collaborative, with CDC and jurisdictions working together to ensure the accuracy of COVID-19 case and death numbers. County counts provided the most up-to-date numbers on cases and deaths by report date. Throughout data collection, CDC retrospectively updated counts to correct known data quality issues. CDC also worked with jurisdictions after the end of the public health emergency declaration to finalize county data.

• Source: The weekly archived dataset is based on county-level aggregate count data
• Confirmed/Probable Cases/Death breakdown: Cumulative cases and deaths for each county are included. Total reported cases include probable and confirmed cases.
• Time Series Frequency: The weekly archived dataset contains weekly time series data (i.e., one record per week per county)

Important note: The counts reflected during a given time period in this dataset may not match the counts reflected for the same time period in the daily archived dataset noted above. Discrepancies may exist due to differences between county and state COVID-19 case surveillance and reconciliation efforts.

The surveillance case definition for COVID-19, a nationally notifiable disease, was first described in a position statement from the Council for State and Territorial Epidemiologists, which was later revised. However, there is some variation in how jurisdictions implement these case classifications. More information on how CDC collects COVID-19 case surveillance data can be found at FAQ: COVID-19 Data and Surveillance.

Confirmed and Probable Counts In this dataset, counts by jurisdiction are not displayed by confirmed or probable status. Instead, counts of confirmed and probable cases and deaths are included in the Total Cases and Total Deaths columns, when available. Not all jurisdictions report

As of January 23, 2021, Vermont had the highest Rt value of any U.S. state. The Rt value indicates the average number of people that one person with COVID-19 is expected to infect. A number higher than one means each infected person is passing the virus to more than one other person.

Which are the hardest-hit states? The U.S. reported its first confirmed coronavirus case toward the end of January 2020. More than 28 million positive cases have since been recorded as of February 24, 2021 – California and Texas are the states with the highest number of coronavirus cases in the United States. When figures are adjusted to reflect each state’s population, North Dakota has the highest rate of coronavirus cases. The vaccine rollout has provided Americans with a significant morale boost, and California is the state with the highest number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered.

How have other nations responded? Countries around the world have responded to the pandemic in varied ways. The United Kingdom has approved three vaccines for emergency use and ranks among the countries with the highest number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered worldwide. In the Asia-Pacific region, the outbreak has been brought under control in New Zealand, and the country’s response to the pandemic has been widely praised.

The COVID Tracking Project collects information from 50 US states, the District of Columbia, and 5 other US territories to provide the most comprehensive testing data we can collect for the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. We attempt to include positive and negative results, pending tests, and total people tested for each state or district currently reporting that data.

Testing is a crucial part of any public health response, and sharing test data is essential to understanding this outbreak. The CDC is currently not publishing complete testing data, so we’re doing our best to collect it from each state and provide it to the public. The information is patchy and inconsistent, so we’re being transparent about what we find and how we handle it—the spreadsheet includes our live comments about changing data and how we’re working with incomplete information.

From here, you can also learn about our methodology, see who makes this, and find out what information states provide and how we handle it.

State level COVID-19 metrics. As of 6/1/2023 this data set is no longer being updated. The COVID-19 Data Report is posted on the Open Data Portal every day at 3pm. The report uses data from multiple sources, including external partners; if data from external partners are not received by 3pm, they are not available for inclusion in the report and will not be displayed. Data that are received after 3pm will still be incorporated and published in the next report update. The cumulative number of COVID-19 cases (cumulative_cases) includes all cases of COVID-19 that have ever been reported to DPH. The cumulative number of COVID_19 cases in the last 7 days (cases_7days) only includes cases where the specimen collection date is within the past 7 days. While most cases are reported to DPH within 48 hours of specimen collection, there are a small number of cases that routinely are delayed, and will have specimen collection dates that fall outside of the rolling 7 day reporting window. Additionally, reporting entities may submit correction files to contribute historic data during initial onboarding or to address data quality issues; while this is rare, these correction files may cause a large amount of data from outside of the current reporting window to be uploaded in a single day; this would result in the change in cumulative_cases being much larger than the value of cases_7days. On June 4, 2020, the US Department of Health and Human Services issued guidance requiring the reporting of positive and negative test results for SARS-CoV-2; this guidance expired with the end of the federal PHE on 5/11/2023, and negative SARS-CoV-2 results were removed from the List of Reportable Laboratory Findings. DPH will no longer be reporting metrics that were dependent on the collection of negative test results, specifically total tests performed or percent positivity. Positive antigen and PCR/NAAT results will continue to be reportable.