Covid’s Midwest Surge Hits Populous Illinois, Ohio and Michigan

(Bloomberg) -- Covid-19’s recent march across the Midwest has caught up with the region’s most populous states.

Illinois, Ohio and Michigan have proven unable to fend off outbreaks at their doorsteps, including in nearby Wisconsin. In Illinois, cases surged to a record 4,015 on Thursday, extending one of the nation’s most concerning weekly trends. Daily Covid-19 deaths in the state rose to 53, the highest since June 24.

In Michigan and Ohio, current coronavirus hospitalizations are up 31% and 28% in the past week, the nation’s fifth- and seventh-biggest spikes respectively, according to the Covid Tracking Project.

On the basis of per-capita cases, none of those states comes close to the viral prevalence in the Dakotas or Wisconsin. But a trend is emerging.

What’s unclear is what the mounting cases will mean for cities including Chicago, Columbus and Detroit. Never has the pandemic so starkly diverged to the detriment of rural America. In late September, it appeared that the largest cities were starting to catch up with the rural wave. Instead, metropolises -- at least for now -- have limited any resurgence, even as rural infections keep soaring.

For instance, Cook County, Illinois -- home of Chicago -- has an infection rate of 138 cases per 100,000 people in the past seven days, below the statewide rate of 160, according to the government data portal USAFacts. The hardest-hit part of Illinois was Johnson County, population 12,400, with about four times as many cases per capita as Cook. Among Illinois counties with at least 200,000 inhabitants, the worst off is Winnebago, near the Wisconsin border, which encompasses the city of Rockford.

The U.S. reported 59,797 new Covid-19 cases Wednesday, pushing the seven-day average to 52,384, the highest since Aug. 14, according to Johns Hopkins University data. There have been about 217,000 deaths.

Across the nation:

• The states with the highest per-capita cases in the past seven days are North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wisconsin and Utah, Covid Tracking Project data show.
• The highest per-capita current hospitalization rates are in South Dakota, Montana, North Dakota, Missouri and Mississippi, according to the project.
• North Dakota, Arkansas, Kansas, South Dakota and Florida lead the nation in per-capita deaths in the past week, although reports often lag by weeks and may not indicate current viral prevalence.
• New Mexico has seen the most dramatic trend swing, with its seven-day average of new cases up 55% in the past week.

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