COVID Map Shows 15 States With Increased Hospital Cases

Fifteen U.S. states had a moderate or substantial increase in hospitalizations with coronavirus in the latest recorded week, compared with the prior seven days, maps from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show.

There were 35,081 new COVID-19 admissions across the U.S. in the week ending January 6—an overall rise of 3.2 percent on the previous week. These increases were higher among states in New England, the Southeast and Northwest—regions that have been hit with brutally cold winter storms in recent weeks.

The uptick in hospitalizations is something health officials expected during the winter months. Colder weather tends to lead to an increased spread of viruses and other infections because immunity is lower. One 2020 study suggested the COVID virus could remain active for longer in cold, dry conditions.

Elevated infections of respiratory diseases such as COVID and influenza have led to some hospitals in areas with large populations to bring in fresh mask mandates.

Hospitalizations with COVID-19 had risen steadily since late June before hitting a low peak at the start of September. They then fell slightly before beginning to rise again through November and December, and into January. The levels remain well below the highest recorded peak: over 150,600 patients in the week ending January 15, 2022.

The latest figures, released on Tuesday, show that New Hampshire had the greatest rise in hospitalizations, up 61.5 percent on the previous week.

Montana saw a week-on-week increase of 40.4 percent, while in Arkansas, Hawaii and Texas, hospital admissions with the virus were up by more than 30 percent. Rhode Island had a rise in hospitalizations of 26.1 percent.

Other states in New England, the Deep South, and Washington and Idaho in the Northwest all saw moderate rises of more than 10 percent on the week prior.

In many other states, the number of hospitalizations was deemed stable—meaning rates showed either small increases or decreases of less than 10 percent—or were in decline compared to the previous recorded week. The only state to see a substantial decrease of 40 percent in hospital admissions was North Dakota.

While the magnitude of the rises in some states might be startling, they often represent a relatively low number of hospital admissions. In New Hampshire, there were just 189 hospitalizations in a week, out of a total of 19,731 since August 2020.

At the same time, states in New England were the only ones to see an elevated proportion of COVID tests returning positive results.

Two CDC administrative regions—encompassing Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont—had an overall test positivity rate above 15 percent. Other regions had positive test rates of between 5 percent and 14.9 percent.

There were only two states where COVID was that cause of more than 6 percent of deaths in the past week: Kentucky, where it caused 9.6 percent of deaths in the state in the week ending January 6, and Oklahoma, where it resulted in 6.2 percent of deaths.

In many other eastern states, COVID contributed to less than 6 percent of deaths, while in many western central states it was recorded as killing fewer than 10 people in the latest recorded week.