In a tragic race no one wants to win, Mississippi and Louisiana have pushed past Massachusetts to claim the third and fourth highest spots among states in terms of total COVID-19 deaths per capita.
The updated top 10 ranking of US states where the virus has been deadliest shows how devastated less-vaccinated Southern states have been by the highly contagious Delta variant.
New Jersey and New York still lead the nation, but Mississippi and Louisiana have moved into third and fourth place, respectively, on the chart, which was created with data from The New York Times, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and Johns Hopkins University.
Massachusetts was hit early and hard like most Northeast states. It was just behind New Jersey and New York and in third place for most of this year (except for a period when Rhode Island’s numbers surged upward). Massachusetts has now fallen to fifth place. A national leader in vaccinations, the state hasn’t been hit as hard by the Delta surge as many other states.
The others in the top 10 as of Thursday are, in descending order: Rhode Island, Arizona, Alabama, Connecticut, and South Dakota.
The chart below shows the top 10 from the beginning of the year. Hit the “Play” button or drag the cursor along the bottom to see how the rankings change over a period when the pandemic waned, then came back to life because of the advent of the Delta variant.
As of Friday, Mississippi and Louisiana were ranked No. 1 and No. 3 in the nation in terms of new cases per capita in the past seven days, according to the New York Times.
The good news is that some experts believe the deadly surge in the South may have peaked.
Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb told CNBC early this week, “I think it’s very clear right now the South has peaked,” though he warned that hospitals “still have some very hard weeks ahead. They’re going to continue to get maxed out even as infections decline.”
Martin Finucane can be reached at martin.finucane@globe.com.
August 27, 2021 at 11:45PM
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/08/27/nation/chart-hard-hit-mississippi-louisiana-surge-past-mass-covid-19-death-ranking/
Chart: Hard-hit Mississippi, Louisiana, surge past Mass. in COVID-19 death ranking - The Boston Globe
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