A lot of states get left out of the new when it comes to COVID numbers.

For today's newsletter, I charted every state's COVID data.

I grouped the US into 8 rough geographic regions and normalized all my charts so that everything is at the same scale

https://polimath.substack.com/p/your-states-covid-numbers-in-context

Every chart has a red line.

For the cases chart, the red line is a warning.

For deaths, the red line helps us ground ourselves in how bad things really got.

First, the Midwest (IA, IL, IN, MI, MN, MO, OH WI)

One thing we can see immediately is that we basically had no testing for Michigan in the early stage of this crisis.

We also see a slow rise in the last month that is probably about half testing increases and half case increase

Mountain States (CO, ID, NV, UT, WY)

Colorado had a modest surge early on, but things were looking very good in these states until mid-June.

There is certainly concern about NV and ID and there will be until their cases stop rising so sharply

First Hit States (CT, DC, DE, MA, MD, NJ, NY, RI, PA)

So far, the only state that has done above the red line on deaths was Michigan.

Every state except MD that is in this group went above that line.

But most of those states are currently back down below the caution line.

Southern Border States (AL, AZ, CA, FL, LA, MS, NM, TX)

Everyone is talking about TX and FL b/c big states make big numbers, but it should be noted that all the southern-most states are seeing similar surges right now.

We are hoping for a peak in the next week or two.

The Mid-South (AR, GA, KY, NC, SC, TN, VA, WV)

This is the weirdest one to me. The southernmost states (GA, SC) are seeing the worst surges.

Followed by the next ones north (TN, AR, NC)

And then the northmost ones (KY, VA, WV)

I am most worried for SC in this group.

The Plain States (KS, MT, ND, NE, OK, SD)

These are odd. We saw NE and SD go well over the caution line but never saw a corresponding surge in deaths.

There is a case surge now, but the slope is still fairly shallow and for that (and the low death rates) we can be thankful

The West Coast (CA, OR, WA)

Yes, CA gets to be in here twice but that is because CA is like 3 states. Their surge is in the southern part of the state and the fact that I only have state-by-state numbers is a detriment. You should follow @liora_ for more about LA county

Upper Northeast (ME, NH, VT) + Alaska and Hawaii

Very low case counts and low deaths for all these states. I haven't looked into that uptick in Alaska, but it looks too sharp to be normal, I suspect it is some reporting data dump.

For my Disney cartoon, I looked at Fall In, Fall Out. World War II was a difficult time for the Disney company and they did a lot of work to bolster morale at home.

Donald became Disney's Army grunt to inject some laughter into the hardship of the war