I've done my best to label every state/territory, which obviously isn't easy to do for most of them given how tangled it gets in the middle. For cases per capita, the most obvious point is that New York and New Jersey, which towered over every other state last spring, are now utterly dwarfed by North & South Dakota, although things are getting pretty horrible everywhere now.
1 out of every 8 residents of North & South Dakota's entire populations have tested positive for COVID-19 over the past year.
Rhode Island is up to 1 out of every 9 residents.
Utah, Tennessee, Arizona,Iowa, Oklahoma and Arkansas are up to 1 out of every 10 residents.
41 states have seen at least 1 out of every 15 residents test positive.
EVERY state except New Hampshire, Washington, Oregon, Maine, Hawaii & Vermont (along with 4 U.S. territories) have now surpassed 1 out of every 20 residents having tested positive.
The "final" OEP numbers are gonna be a little fuzzy in some state-based exchanges this year, of course. Several states had OEP deadlines which extended past the federal one as usual, including some which didn't end until January 31st. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, however, several of those states went gone ahead and bumped their deadlines out further yet, through as late as March for Maryland and New York.
Then last week, of course, the Biden Administration announced that HealthCare.Gov is re-opening enrollment for a full three months starting on February 15th, and a bunch of state exchanges scrambled to announce their own additional re-openings or extensions...some of which already overlapped with those 1/31 deadlines.
Huh...this is interesting. I noted a few weeks back that the Massachusetts Health Connector reported 11% fewer people had enrolled in Qualifying Health Plans (QHPs) for 2021 as of mid-January than they had during the 2020 Open Enrollment Period. At the time, they were running about 6% behind year over year, and attributed the enrollment drop (the first in the MA Health Connector's history since the first Open Enrollment Period back in 2013-2014) primarily to Medicaid enrollment:
Lower membership is primarily the result of decreased new enrollments rather than termination of existing members, likely due to Medicaid protections associated with the federal public health emergency.
As a state-based marketplace, Pennie increases new enrollment by 9.7% and raises total enrollment to nearly 338,000. Now, Pennie is offering more time to enroll in plans for those affected by COVID-19.
Pennsylvanians who have recently lost health coverage or have been affected by COVID-19 can visit pennie.com and enroll in a plan from February 15 through May 15.
February 3, 2021 – The Massachusetts Health Connector announced today a further extension of its Open Enrollment through May 23, providing residents impacted by COVID-19 the opportunity to get access to affordable, comprehensive health insurance.
The Health Connector previously announced an extension of Open Enrollment through March 23, two additional months beyond the original Jan. 23 deadline. Open Enrollment started Nov. 1, and the new deadline of May 23 aligns the Massachusetts health insurance exchange with the new open enrollment period for the federal exchange platform, healthcare.gov, which reopens Feb. 15 and remains open through May 15, and will be accompanied by a national marketing and awareness campaign.
DC Residents Without Health Insurance Can Get Covered Now Through DC Health Link
Annual Open Enrollment is over, but DC Health Link’s COVID-19 Special Enrollment Period continues through the duration of DC’s public health emergency
(Washington, DC) – Uninsured District of Columbia residents have more time to enroll in health coverage for 2021. From now through the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, residents can enroll using DC Health Link’s Special Enrollment Period (SEP) for COVID-19. All DC Health Link plans cover diagnosis, treatment, testing, and vaccination for COVID-19 for free.
UPDATE: Everything below refers to HR 369, but the American Rescue Plan, HR 1319, contains a virtually identical expansion of ACA subsidies...if only for two years.
Note that under HR 1319 (AmRescuePlan), the first year would be retroactive, meaning that current ACA enrollees should receive additional subsidies dating back to January 2021, though I don't know what form that will take...rebate checks, credit towards future premiums or an extra tax refund next spring.
Over the past couple of years, one of the things I've become known for is my obsessive fixation on visually displaying how much various households would save on healthcare premiums if various ACA subsidy-boosting bills were passed compared with the current ACA subsidy structure.
HealthSource RI Joins President Biden and Announces New Health Coverage Enrollment Period
EAST PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (February 1, 2021) — Following President Biden’s announcement on Thursday January 28, HealthSource RI has established a new enrollment period to give Rhode Islanders additional time to sign up for health coverage. Uninsured Rhode Islanders can enroll for coverage effective as early as March 1. HealthSource RI’s enrollment period will continue through May 15, 2021.
This enrollment period is open to all eligible uninsured Rhode Islanders, with no requirement to have a qualifying life event to enroll in health coverage. Coverage starts the first of the month following a complete enrollment.
The data below comes from the GitHub data repositories of Johns Hopkins University, except for Utah, which comes from the GitHub data of the New York Times due to JHU not breaking the state out by county but by "region" for some reason.
I've made some more changes:
Every county except those in Alaska lists the 2020 Biden/Trump partisan lean; Alaska still uses the 2016 Clinton/Trump results. I define a "Swing District" as one where the difference between Biden & Trump was less than 6.0%. FWIW, there's just 188 swing districts (out of over 3,100 total), with around 33.8 million Americans out of 332 million total, or roughly 10.2% of the U.S. population.
For the U.S. territories, Puerto Rico only includes the case breakout, not deaths, which are unavailable by county equivalent for some reason.
With these updates in mind, here's the top 100 counties ranked by per capita COVID-19 cases as of Saturday, January 30th, 2021 (click image for high-res version).
Blue = Joe Biden won by more than 6 points; Orange = Donald Trumpwon by more than 6 points; Yellow = Swing District
