Quick look at hospitalizations by region

Using data from HealthData.gov on hospitals, below I chart the weekly adult hospital admissions (per 100k) with confirmed COVID for each region. This data appears to only go back to summer 2020, so unsure what spring of 2020 would have looked like. The y-axis is scaled independently for each regions & the color of the bar is relative to the entire country… so, for example, you can see the peaks and valleys in the Northwest, while recognizing that, relative to other regions, COVID-confirmed hospitalizations in Northwest have been low (thus always blue bars). For reference, a line is included to show the maximum level of COVID-confirmed hospital admissions per 100k:

Observations:

• 7 of the 11 regions (Middle Atlantic, New England, Ohio Valley, South, South Atlantic, Southeast, Southwest) have reached peak hospitalizations in the last few weeks.

• 3 more (Northwest, Upper Midwest, West) are not far from reaching previous max and appear to be headed there.

• Northern Plains & Rockies, at least for now, appears to be an outlier as they are only ~ 1/2 their previous peak. I suspect, however, this may be due to seasonal patterns that appear different than other regions. At least to my eye, the peaks and valleys in this region do not align as closely as most other regions, so it may be that they are only at the beginning stage of their wave.