COVID Map Reveals Latest Data on US Cases

New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has revealed the latest figures for COVID-19 in the United States, based on data from the week ending December 21.

Test positivity nationwide is at 7.5 percent, up by 1.9 percent from the previous week, with clear regional differences for where more COVID-19 tests are coming back positive.

The states with the highest percentage of test positivity are in region 10, the northwest, with 9.4 percent: Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington.

Region 5 comes in at a close second with 9.2 percent in the Midwest: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

At the other end of the spectrum, the lowest COVID-19 test positivity rates are in region 9, in the west, with 1.5 percent: Arizona, California, Hawaii and Nevada.

There are also lower than average rates of test positivity in region 4 (from Florida to Kentucky), region 3 (from Virginia to Pennsylvania) and region 2 (New York and New Jersey).

In the rest of the country—north, the central south and the eastern-most states—rates are 5 percent or higher.

"Many respiratory virus illnesses peak during the winter due to environmental conditions and human behaviors," a CDC spokesperson told Newsweek.

"COVID-19 has peaks in the winter and at other times of the year, including the summer, driven by new variants and decreasing immunity from previous infections and vaccinations."

The spokesperson explained that apparent regional differences were more complicated when bearing in mind other ways CDC measures COVID-19 levels, including emergency department visits and wastewater viral activity levels.

"Taken together, these data suggest a more complex geographic pattern of COVID-19 activity is currently occurring, which is to be expected as these are early signs of a winter (seasonal) wave."

In the week ending December 21, 1.1 percent of deaths were from COVID-19, according to CDC.

Also, 0.9 percent of weekly visits to an emergency department were from COVID-19, highest in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan New Hampshire and New Mexico.

However, the weekly rate of COVID-19 associated hospitalizations are down from the previous week, at 1.6 per 100,000 for the week ending December 21 compared to 2.1 the week before and 2.0 the week before that.

Cumulatively, there have been over 1.2 million deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S. since the beginning of the pandemic.

The CDC spokesperson said that everyone aged 6 months and older should get a COVID-19 vaccine for the 2024–2025 season.

"The COVID-19 vaccine helps protect you from severe illness, hospitalization and death," they said.

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Correction 06/01/2025, 8:12 a.m. ET: This article has been updated to clarify that there have been 1.2 million deaths from COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic and not in the past three months.