COVID map shows 9 states with largest hospitalizations rises

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Aleks Phillips

By Aleks Phillips

U.S. News Reporter

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Nine U.S. states have had a substantial increase in coronavirus hospitalizations in the latest recorded week compared to the week prior, new maps produced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show.

While there were 18,139 new admissions with the virus across the U.S. in the week ending September 30—an overall decline of 6 percent on the previous week—there have been localized rises in parts of the West and Midwest, as well as parts of New England, where test positivity was at its highest in the same period.

These figures offset statewide falls in hospital admissions with COVID-19, falling as much as 24.2 percent in Kansas and nearly 22 percent in Arkansas from the week ending September 23.

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The results come after a steady rise in cases and hospitalizations over the summer months led some private institutions, hospital operators and colleges in the U.S. to reintroduce requirements for staff or visitors to wear masks while at their sites to limit the spread of the new variants—EG.5 and BA.2.86.

A map of U.S. states showing the percentage change in hospital admissions with COVID-19 in the week ending September 30, 2023, compared to the week prior. Dark orange denotes states where hospitalizations have increased in excess of 20 percent; light orange where they have increased more than 10 percent; yellow were hospitalizations are

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As of September 15, the CDC said that the latter variant "does not appear to be rapidly increasing or driving increases in infections or hospitalizations" in the U.S., and that existing antibodies were giving individuals immunity against the new strain. Many of the institutions have since relaxed their mask mandates, though some hospitals in New Jersey reintroduced them in response to infection rates.

Hospitalizations with COVID-19 had been rising since late June, before seemingly peaking at the start of September, but have been steadily falling since then and remain well below the highest recorded peak of over 150,600 patients in the week ending January 15, 2021.

However, a CDC spokesperson previously told Newsweek: "While rates now seem to be plateauing, we are entering October, which is the typical start of the respiratory virus season. Even if hospitalization rates level off for a few weeks, they could increase in the coming weeks, and prevention is the best approach."

The latest figures, released on Tuesday, show New Mexico had seen the greatest rise in hospitalizations, up 52.6 percent. Wyoming, Rhode Island and Vermont had increases of over 30 percent compared to the week before, while in Idaho, South Dakota, Arizona, Delaware and Maine hospital admissions with the virus were up by over 20 percent.

States that saw an increase of between 10 and 20 percent were Oregon, Montana, Utah, Colorado, Nebraska, Indiana, New York and New Jersey. Other states and territories either saw minimal rises or declines from week to week.

While the rapidity of the increases in some states may be startling, this may be because they represent a relatively low number of hospital admissions. In New Mexico, there were just 87 hospitalizations in a week, out of a total of 38,450 since August 2020.

Nationwide, there has been a 2.1 percent rise in the number of patients occupying intensive-care-unit beds with COVID-19, representing the worst cases, which usually require ventilation.