Which Way Are Things Going?

A weekly checkup (Final entry March 10, 2023)

About This Map

To help policy makers, business leaders and the public understand COVID-19 trends, Charlie Frye, Chief Cartographer at Esri, analyzes the week to week changes in active cases, using the daily updates from Johns Hopkins University.

By shifting focus from the highly variable daily changes in active case counts to a weekly perspective, we can see weekly trends emerge. These maps show the final weekly trend data as of March 5, 2023. This map, dashboard and underlying data are no longer being updated.

This arrow map at right builds on a simple question most people want to know: are things getting better or worse in my area? And for how long has it been going this way?

The colored arrow indicates whether new cases of COVID-19 are going up week to week, or hopefully going down.

Purple arrows always point upwards because cases are accelerating. Orange arrows always point down because new cases are slowing down.

Bigger arrows indicate where new case rates are significantly higher. That is the reason those counties should grab your attention.

An arrow pointing straight up indicates about 8 weeks in a bad direction.

Zoom in on the map to see active cases as a percent of the population.

Percent of population that are active cases.

Scroll down to find quick links to each state.

Find Your State

Let's put Alaska and Hawaii first in our state of the union review.

Click on a county to see each county's current trend and the direction within that trend. For example, your county may be in the worst trend, called "Epidemic," and "Strongly worse for 2 weeks" as its direction. That's like being in a hospital's ICU and getting worse.

Or, your county may be in a "Spreading" trend and "Strongly better for 4 weeks." This is a good direction within the second-most concerning trend level.

To determine recent direction (up or down) of new COVID-19 cases for U.S. Counties we look at each week’s change in new cases and account for the county’s population. Direction has two components. The first can be up, down, or no change, and the second can be slight, moderate, or strong. A strong upward trend in active cases earns a dark purple arrow pointing up. A strong downward trend in active cases earns a dark orange arrow pointing down.

We count the number of weeks the most recent direction has occurred because the number of weeks it has existed may be reflecting local policy changes. A downward trend for 8 weeks is a nearly vertical down arrow, colored orange. An upward trend for one week is a purple arrow pointing slightly up.

By the way, the source map shown here  is also available in ArcGIS Living Atlas  for your use in your own apps, dashboards and storymaps.

The next five states are in order of largest population. I love scrolling as much as the next person, but everyone wants to get to their state quickly, so I'm playing the odds.

The next five states join New York as the highest numbers of COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 population as of August 1, 2020.

Here are the states joining Alaska and Hawaii with the lowest numbers of COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 population as of August 31, 2020.

These next four states are constantly confused if you try to find them by their abbreviations.

Before we get to the rest of the states, how about, for once, we get these territories into the discussion earlier?

Here are all the other states, alphabetically listed. If I had my way, this storymap would allow me to list these states' map actions in order of population, or active cases per 100,000 population, so that I can make interesting lists that are not alphabetical and that I don't have to hand-construct and hand-update each week.

Being in the bottom half of an alphabetical list is one of those quiet burdens borne. Hang in there.

Best and Worst Counties Lists

Click on a county in a list to see its location on the map.

ArcGIS Dashboards (Beta)

Credits

Weekly Trends & Direction Summary of Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Data

Charlie Frye, Esri

Arrow style map and Dashboard

Jim Herries, Esri