Covid Hospitalization Record Near as Midwest, Texas Drive Surge

(Bloomberg) --

The U.S. appears poised to hit record Covid-19 hospitalizations this week, with numbers soaring in populous Midwest states including Illinois and Michigan as well as along the U.S.-Mexico border.

In Texas, El Paso alone has more people hospitalized with the virus than 29 states, according to the local government.

With the latest uptick, current hospitalizations nationwide are at 56,768 and climbing at a clip of 1,321 a day in the past week, a pace that would put the nation no more than three days from the April 15 record of 59,940, according to Covid Tracking Project data.

That’s not to say that the current surge is as bad as the assault on New York and New Jersey early in the pandemic. In April, hospitalization data wasn’t available for every state. But the situation for America’s health-care system is probably as bad as it has been since then.

In the Midwest, the Dakotas are facing the most hospitalizations per capita, and more-populous states are now surging, too. Illinois recently blew past Missouri and Wisconsin to become the fifth-worst in current hospitalizations, adjusted for population.

Overall, the U.S. added 108,198 cases on Sunday, bringing the seven-day average to a record 108,920, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The single-day tally was also the highest ever for a Sunday.

The seven-day average of newly reported deaths rose to 942, the highest since Aug. 25, Johns Hopkins data show. Overall, there have been nearly 238,000 confirmed coronavirus deaths in America during the pandemic.

According to Covid Tracking Project data:

• North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Wyoming and Nebraska have the most new cases per capita in the past week.
• Cases are rising everywhere in the U.S. except South Dakota and Rhode Island, based on the change in seven-day average cases from a week earlier.
• The seven-day average of new cases in the West -- as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau -- rose to a record 18,508. On Friday, it broke above the region’s previous high-water mark from July 25.
• Single-day case records were posted Sunday in New Hampshire, Minnesota, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Idaho, Washington and Colorado.

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