U.S. coronavirus hotspots continue to improve with declining cases, hospitalizations

Several recent coronavirus hotspots across the country are regularly reporting marked improvements in their respective numbers of new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, with drops that began weeks ago continuing steady declines through the late summer. 

Arizona, Florida and Texas, which through June and July were posting regular record numbers of new daily infections and hospitalized COVID-19 patients, have all reported declining numbers of both for roughly a month. The outbreaks in all three states appear to have peaked within a week of each other in early- to mid-July, based on state-level data. 

Arizona's COVID-19 dashboard indicates that its daily infection rate in fact peaked nearly two months ago, at the end of June. The state's hospitalization rate – a metric that experts say lag behind infection rates by as much as a few weeks – continued to increase through early July. 

State data shows the total number of hospitalized COVID patients peaking on July 13 – at 3,517 – before beginning a steady decline. The number as of Tuesday was 1,160, a 67% decrease from the July peak. 

Daily deaths there, meanwhile, appear to have peaked over a month ago, on July 17, when a total of 95 deaths were logged in one day. 

Florida hospitalizations fall by nearly half

Florida has also seen a sustained and apparently ongoing drop in new COVID cases and hospitalizations. That state's dashboard shows an apparent peak of daily cases at 12,351 on July 23; in contrast, daily cases over the past week have averaged roughly half of that. 

Deaths also appear to have peaked around the same time, with the state posting a high of 184 deaths on July 20, after which they began a steady decline. Florida warns that its death data "often has significant delays in reporting, so data within the past two weeks will be updated frequently," though a decline can still be observed outside of that two-week window. 

The state does not make hospitalization data readily accessible on its dashboard, though its Agency for Healthcare Administration posts regular updates of current hospitalization numbers on its own website. The trend of that data, collated by the COVID Tracking Project, shows state hospitalizations peaking at 9,520 on July 21 before declining to 5,312 on Wednesday, a drop of 44%. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis acknowledged these improving numbers on Monday, saying at a press conference that "trends in Florida ... have been trending in the right direction for many weeks now,” though Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez said that "the numbers still aren’t where we want to be. They’re heading in that direction, but they’re not where we want to be."

Texas deaths, hospitalizations, cases all down

Like Arizona and Florida, Texas – which through the summer was also feared to be losing control of its COVID-19 outbreak due to hospitalization increases and thousands of new cases per day – also appears to have turned a corner at roughly the same time as the other two states.

The state dashboard suggests new infections may have peaked on July 16 when the state posted 10,791 new cases. Daily deaths, meanwhile, appear to have begun falling on July 23. 

Hospitalizations have also decreased, falling about as much as those in Florida: The state posted a high of just under 10,900 COVID inpatients on July 23, with the number as of Tuesday standing at 6,210, a drop of about 43%. That's the lowest number of hospitalized coronavirus patients the state has recorded since late June. 

Those improving numbers coincide with what appears to be nationwide trends in declining cases and hospitalizations. The Covid Tracking Project identifies July 23 as the peak of average daily new cases in the country, after which cases began to drop. Daily deaths over the summer, meanwhile, have trended much lower than their mid-April peak of around 2,000 per day; average daily deaths over the past two weeks appear to have more or less plateaued at just over 1,000.