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Posted Nov 18, 2020, 12:02 pm

Liz Essley Whyte Center for Public Integrity

All but three states are now in the red zone for new coronavirus cases, according to new White House coronavirus task force reports.

“There is now aggressive, unrelenting, expanding broad community spread across the country, reaching most counties, without evidence of improvement but rather, further deterioration,” the task force told governors in its Nov. 15 reports. “Current mitigation efforts are inadequate and must be increased to flatten the curve to sustain the health system for both COVID and non-COVID emergencies.”

Arizona remains in the "red zone" for the second straight week, as coronavirus infections skyrocket.

Arizona has had 17,900 new reported infections in the past seven days, with Pima County setting absolute high records for new cases contracted within the past week twice in just the last three days. More than 2,600 new confirmed cases have been reported here in the past seven days, with the rate of positive tests increasing along with the numbers of infected people.

County officials said last week that the "alarming rate" of new coronavirus cases here looks "like the beginning of the huge spike that we saw over the summer," and local officials are cautioning people to be safer as the holidays approach.

Arizona's Gov. Doug Ducey had previously signaled he would not impose any new restrictions in a state that saw more than 3,200 new infections and 53 additional deaths reported Wednesday morning. The Republican governor has his first live COVID-19 briefing in weeks scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.

The federal task force continued its push for more antigen testing and also urged states to beef up their warnings to the public prior to Thanksgiving.

“The upcoming holidays can amplify transmission considerably,” the task force told Washington state. “Washington should continue to expand public health messaging across all media platforms, including SMS auto-texting, to warn citizens about the risks of social gatherings.”

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The task force told multiple states they should urge people to celebrate holidays only with members of their own household.

Over the past weeks, cases have been on the rise with just more than 2,000 new COVID-19 cases reported from the first week of November in Pima County. Hospital admissions for COVID-19 have also "spiked," officials said.

"This is the highest one week total since the large spike in cases over the summer," Pima County health authorities said. "The first week of November saw the same level of cases during the beginning weeks of June 2020."

Gov. Ducey has indicated for weeks that he has no plans to impose additional restrictions as Arizona's tally of COVID-19 infections began to climb again. With more than 283,000 reported infections in the state since the beginning of the pandemic, 6,365 Arizonans have died from the disease.

Hawaii, Maine and Vermont are the only states not in the red zone for cases, meaning they had fewer than 101 new cases last week per 100,000 residents. More than half of states are also now in the White House’s red zones for test positivity and deaths.

The reports to governors and senior state health officials are not made public. The Center for Public Integrity is collecting and publishing them.

The states in the red zone for cases in this week’s report (meaning they had more than 100 new cases per 100,000 residents in the week prior):

1. North Dakota
2. South Dakota
3. Iowa
4. Wyoming
5. Wisconsin
6. Nebraska
7. Illinois
8. Minnesota
9. Kansas
10. Montana
11. Utah
12. Indiana
13. Colorado
14. Alaska
15. Idaho
16. Rhode Island
17. Missouri
18. Michigan
19. New Mexico
20. Tennessee
21. Oklahoma
22. Arkansas
23. Ohio
24. Kentucky
25. Nevada
26. Connecticut
27. West Virginia
28. Mississippi
29. Pennsylvania
30. New Jersey
31. Massachusetts
32. Alabama
33. Texas
34. Arizona
35. Delaware
36. South Carolina
37. Florida
38. Louisiana
39. Maryland
40. North Carolina
41. Washington
42. Oregon
43. New York
44. New Hampshire
45. California
46. District of Columbia
47. Virginia
48. Georgia

The states in the red zone for test positivity in this week’s report (meaning more than 10 percent of tests in the state were positive in the week prior):

1. Montana
2. Idaho
3. Iowa
4. Nebraska
5. Kansas
6. South Dakota
7. Missouri
8. Wisconsin
9. Oklahoma
10. Utah
11. North Dakota
12. Minnesota
13. Nevada
14. Illinois
15. New Mexico
16. Indiana
17. Tennessee
18. Michigan
19. Mississippi
20. Kentucky
21. Colorado
22. Texas
23. Wyoming
24. Alabama
25. Alaska
26. South Carolina
27. Arkansas
28. Ohio

The states in the red zone for deaths (meaning they had more than more than two new deaths per 100,000 residents in the week prior): 

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1. North Dakota
2. South Dakota
3. Montana
4. Wisconsin
5. New Mexico
6. Indiana
7. Tennessee
8. West Virginia
9. Michigan
10. Iowa
11. Idaho
12. Wyoming
13. Nebraska
14. Missouri
15. Alabama
16. Minnesota
17. Illinois
18. Mississippi
19. Kansas
20. Arkansas
21. Rhode Island
22. Texas
23. Georgia
24. Pennsylvania
25. Kentucky
26. Massachusetts
27. Colorado
28. Louisiana