A new internal federal government map shows that nearly the entire United States has become one giant coronavirus hotspot.
The map, produced by the Departments of Homeland Security (DHS) and Health and Human Services (DHHS) and exclusively obtained by Yahoo! News, has a key with five categories: ‘low burden,’ ‘moderate burden,’ ’emerging hotspot,’ ‘hot spot’ and ‘sustained hotspots.’
The brief, dated November 29 and labeled ‘not for distribution’, reveals 48 states, and the District of Columbia, have multiple counties marked in red as ‘sustained hotspots.’
Only two states did not fall in this category: Hawaii and Rhode Island.
It comes as the US broke yet another grim record on Monday as the number of Americans in the hospital with coronavirus rose to 96,039 people – an almost 12 percent increase from the week before.
And, on Tuesday, the US reported 157,901 new infections and 1,172 deaths.
An analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University shows average cases have risen 95 percent to 160,428 and average daily deaths have increased by nearly 80 percent to 1,457 in the last month.
The DHS and DHHS brief from Yahoo! News also contained more maps that convey the severity of the pandemic as it sweeps across the nation in this third wave.
One map shows the incidence rate in each county over the last seven days per 100,000.
Most counties are either colored in red, indicating between 200 and 499 cases per 100,000 people, or in dark red, which designated more than 500 cases per 100,000 people.
For the entire US, the incidence rate is 336 cases per 100,000 people, a new record and up from the previous high of 322 cases per 100,000 two weeks ago, according to Yahoo! News.
However, there was some good news too with the percent change in cases per 100,000 from the previous seven days dropping by 5.7 percent.
These figures are expected to become worse over the next several weeks as Americans travel and held large gatherings for Thanksgiving.
And public health experts war that Americans who ignored advice not to do so will now make the situation worse with Dr Anthony Fauci, that nation’s top infectious disease expert, describing it as ‘a surge, superimposed on a surge’.
Unlike in the spring, when the epicenter was New York and the heartlands were relatively spared, now the pandemic is nationwide.
Cases are rising in 41 states: North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Wyoming and Nebraska were among the hardest-hit.