Arizona, California and Rhode Island have world's worst COVID infection rates per capita

Arizona, California and Rhode Island are seeing higher rates of COVID-19 infections per capita than any country in the world as the US grapples with skyrocketing cases, hospitalizations and deaths.  

Arizona leads the nation for new infections per capita with 827 per 100,000 people in the week ended Tuesday, followed by California with 671 per 100,000 and Rhode Island with 666 per 100,000, according to a DailyMail.com analysis of data from the COVID Tracking Project. 

By comparison, the country with the world’s highest per capita infection rate, the Czech Republic, reported 653 new cases per 100,000 people in the same period.  

Cases are currently rising in 47 US states and territories, with 214,378 new infections and 3,478 new deaths reported on Tuesday. 

Hospitalizations broke a record for a third day in a row on Tuesday with 131,195. That number represents an increase of more than 5,600 from two days ago. 

It comes as the US faces a new threat from a mutant strain of coronavirus that has now been detected in at least 37 individuals across seven states, according to the CDC. The strain, which was first detected in the United Kingdom, is said to be up to 70 percent more transmissible than the original. 

The majority of cases of the mutant strain have been reported in California, where the tally jumped from six on Sunday to 32 on Tuesday – less than a week after the first case was diagnosed in the state. 

One in 930 Americans have now died from COVID-19. In the week ended January 3, more than 18,400 people died from the virus, marking the deadlies
t week of the pandemic. The seven-day rolling average for fatalities is now at just over 2,600 per day. 

Experts have predicted that January will far outpace December for fatalities, as the US continues to set records for hospitalizations and the effects of holiday activities come to fruition. 

The health crisis continues to be especially dire in California, which reported 31,440 cases, 368 deaths and 22,485 hospitalizations on Monday. 

Nearly two-thirds of the Golden State’s latest deaths came from Los Angeles County, where 224 were reported on Tuesday, bringing the total to date to 11,071. 

Los Angeles County, the nation’s largest with a quarter of California’s 40 million residents, has seen a more than 1,000 percent spike in hospitalizations since early November, with 7,898 currently admitted.

Ambulance crews in the county have been advised to conserve oxygen and not to transport patients who have virtually no chance of survival to the hospital because resources need to be reserved for those with better prognoses.    

While the situation in California continues to spiral, Arizona is currently the worst affected state for cases per capita with an average of 118 daily new cases per 100,000 residents in the last seven days, for a weekly total of 827 per 100,000, according to DailyMail.com’s analysis of COVID Tracking Project data. 

California follows just behind with an average of 95 daily new cases per 100,000 residents. 

Cases, hospitalizations and deaths in Arizona have been surging since last month. In the last week alone, all three metrics have hit single-day highs amid the pandemic.   

Meanwhile, deaths per capita are currently the worst in Kansas where an average of 1.8 deaths per 100,000 residents have been recorded, CDC data shows. 

Wyoming follows with 1.6 deaths and then New Mexico and Pennsylvania with 1.4 deaths.    

‘Super-COVID’ spreads in the US: CDC says highly transmissible strain from the UK is now in at least SEVEN states

The more infectious ‘super-covid’ variant from the UK is in at least seven states, a CDC official told DailyMail.com Tuesday, but refused to reveal which remaining two states beyond Colorado, California, Florida New York and Georgia have cases.

Dr Greg Armstrong, director of the Office of Advanced Molecular Detection at the CDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases said that the new variant accounts for ‘fewer than one in 200’ samples run by US labs. 

‘It’s up to the states’ to disclose when they have discovered a case of the new variant, Dr Armstrong said. ‘Almost all regulatory authority is at the state level.’ 

Georgia on Tuesday announced its first case of the ‘mutant’ COVID-19 strain.  

The virus is said to have been found in an 18-year-old boy with no travel history. Georgia joins New York, California, Colorado and Florida in all reporting cases. 

The new variant is between 50 percent and 70 percent more transmissible, scientists say. 

Georgians cast high-stakes final votes Tuesday in elections to determine the balance of power in the new Congress, deciding Senate runoff elections sure to shape President-elect Joe Biden’s ability to enact what could be the most progressive governing agenda in generations. 

The first US case of the strain was reported in a remote nursing home in Colorado last week. It has since also been discovered elsewhere in the state, as well as in New York, Florida and California.

San Diego on Tuesday was reporting 32 cases of the variant, bringing to the total cases across the US to 37. Wilma Wooten, county public health officer, said: ‘The fact that these cases have been identified in multiple parts of the region shows that this strain of the virus could be rapidly spreading.’ 

The ‘mutant’ variant of the virus that began ravaging across the UK towards the end of last year, causing cases to surge and forcing Prime Minister Boris Johnson to announce a third nationwide lockdown Monday. 

Georgia DPH Commissioner Kathleen E. Toomey said: ‘The emergence of this variant in our state should be a wake-up call for all Georgians.’

Dr Armstrong told DailyMail.com that a hallmark of the variant that’s sent the UK into lockdown is seen in about half of a percent of all samples seen in the US, according to testing data from Helix.

Surgeon General vaccine rollout ‘a little messy as he urges states to relax eligibility rules to get more people vaccinated   

US Surgeon General Jerome Adams has called on US states to relax their guidelines in order to get more Americans vaccinated as thousands of Florida seniors camped out in their cars overnight to get their shots and New York threatened to fine hospitals for not using up supplies amid a train wreck vaccine rollout across the country.    

Just 4.66 million COVID-19 vaccines have been administered across the US in the last three weeks despite federal officials having distributed 15.4 million doses to the states. It means more than two-thirds of the vaccines shipped within the US have gone unused and just 1.4 percent of the population has been vaccinated even as cases, deaths and hospitalizations continue to surge across the US. 

Adams on Tuesday admitted that the largest vaccination campaign in US history, which has been in the works for months, has been a ‘little bit messy’.

He blamed, in part, the states for the slower than expected rollout and called on governors – who are in charge of their state plans – to speed up the process by moving to the next priority groups if demand wasn’t being met. 

Based on guidelines issued by the federal government, most states are curren
tly prioritizing frontline healthworkers and nursing home residents in the first phase, before moving on to the elderly and other essential workers. 

‘In many cases, (the vaccines) are sitting in freezers. We’ve been telling these states since September, we need to prioritize getting everyone vaccinated as quickly as possible while trying to adhere to the guidelines,’ Adams told NBC’s Today. ‘If healthcare workers don’t want to get these vaccines in some places… we need to move on to the (next groups). 

‘If the demand isn’t there in 1A, go to 1B and continue on down. If the demand isn’t there in one location, move those vaccines to another location.’ 

The widespread rollout failures have already been blamed on a range of factors, including governors setting convoluted priorities for initial distribution, lack of federal oversight, chaos in distribution given the freezing temperatures of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, and the simple lack of staff to administer jabs in overstretched healthcare systems. 

Adams warned the US needed to do a better job of matching up supply and demand in states like Florida where hundreds of seniors camped out in their cars overnight in Daytona Beach in order to get their shots. 

The seniors camped out in the Daytona Stadium parking lot so they could be first in line for at the drive-thru vaccine facility. In other parts of Florida, seniors are registering online to get access to the shots.   

‘The problem is we need to do a better job of matching up supply and demand at the local level,’ Adams said. 

‘Some states are doing a really good job. You have red states like North and South Dakota and blue places like DC and Connecticut who have distributed 75 plus percent of their vaccines. But you have some states that still haven’t distributed 25 percent of their vaccines.’

In New York, Gov Andrew Cuomo has threatened to fine hospitals up to $100,000 for not using up their allocated doses. He had previously threatened health care providers with a $1 million fine if they are caught fraudulently obtaining and giving out the vaccine. 

Florida has taken a similar approach in penalizing hospitals with Gov Rick DeSantis announcing a policy under which the state will allocate more doses to hospitals that dispense them most quickly.

New York has so far used up 33 percent of its allocation and vaccinated 1.5 percent of its population. Florida has used up 23 percent of its vaccine doses with 1.2 percent of residents having received the shots.

In comparison, Washington DC’s health department is urging providers to hand out vaccines that are nearing expiration to anyone who wants it. Pharmacists in DC have been handing out vaccines to people in grocery stores if those scheduled to receive the shot don’t show for their appointments. As of Tuesday, DC had used up 48 percent of its shots and vaccinated 2.4 percent of it population.   

According to a state-by-state breakdown, Kansas and Georgia have only administered 17 percent of the doses distributed to them. Hard-hit California has so far used 24 percent of its vaccine shots, while Florida has used 23 percent. New York, the initial epicenter of the outbreak, has used up 33 percent of its allocation.

Only a handful of states have used more than 50 percent of the shots distributed to them: South Dakota (62%), North Dakota (58%), Tennessee (50%), Connecticut (50%) and Maine (50%). 

The race to vaccinate Americans quickly comes as a super-contagious mutant strain of COVID-19 that has forced the UK into its third lockdown has already been detected in the US. Dozens of people, who are spread across New York, California, Colorado, Georgia and Florida, have been confirmed to have the variant of the virus. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has revealed that one in 50 in England – around a million people all up – are now infected with coronavirus. 

Dr Anthony Fauci was more optimistic about the sluggish start, saying the US could soon be giving at least a million vaccinations a day.

‘Any time you start a big program, there´s always glitches. I think the glitches have been worked out,’ Fauci told The Associated Press.