Question: Following yesterday’s post, how are trends in Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia?

Answer: Also not good.  Charts for those four states are below.  I made them thanks to data compiled by covidtracking.com.

Figure 1. Kentucky: Daily cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are at their highest ever (7-day rolling average 3,387 cases/day, 1,764 currently hospitalized, 25 deaths/day).  Test positivity is quickly rising (averaging 7.1% this last week). 

Figure 2. Tennessee: Daily cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are at their highest ever (7-day rolling average of 4,868 cases/day, 2,691 hospitalized, and 56 deaths/day).  Test positivity is extremely high at 17% and testing has been very slow to increase.  For example, Kentucky averages the same number of weekly tests as Tennessee, but has only 65% the population of Tennessee.

Figure 3. Texas: Daily cases are the highest ever (7-day rolling average 13,150).  Hospitalizations and deaths are quickly rising, but have not yet reached the peaks of earlier this summer (7-day rolling average 8,974 hospitalized, 177 deaths/day).  Test positivity is extremely high at 14%.

Figure 4. Virginia: Cases and hospitalizations are at their highest ever (7-day rolling average of 2,730 cases/day and 1,829 currently hospitalized).  Daily deaths are increasing (7-day rolling average of 20 deaths/day), though they are not yet as high as earlier in the pandemic.  Test positivity is increasing (7-day rolling average of 10.5%) and testing has been slow to increase.