The spread of COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths across America has become more alarming by the day. Cases total 22,732,280 and have started to rise by over 200,000 most days. Deaths stand at 378,777 and almost certainly will reach 400,000 at the end of the month. An astonishing quarter of the world’s confirmed cases are in the United States. American hospital intensive care units have filled to over 100% in many places. The national number of hospitalizations reached over 125,000 almost a week ago, a record, and continue to rise.

COVID-19’s spread gets measured in several traditional ways. The numbers of cases and deaths by state and by county are released to the public every day. Another measure is confirmed cases over the past seven days. That measures the intensity of the spread of the disease in a specific area. Among the states, the worst based on this statistic by a wide margin is Arizona, which was hit hard at midyear when the disease spread west and south from the first waves of the disease that were in the northeast and Midwest, particularly in the New York City area. COVID-19 has returned with a vengeance to the nation’s 14th largest state by its population at 7,421,401.

The confirmed case count per 100,000 people over the past seven days in Arizona is 130. This is much higher than in the next states. These are California and Rhode Island at 107. At the far end of the spectrum, Hawaii’s figure is 14.

Arizona’s problem has been driven to a large extent by its largest county, Maricopa, which is home to Phoenix. Confirmed cases per 100,000 on a seven-day average in the county are 135. The county has about 60% of the state’s population.

According to John’s Hopkins, Maricopa County has the third-highest number of cases among all counties at 382,409. That places it behind Los Angeles County at 920,177 and Cook County, home to Chicago, at 417,790.

Maricopa County ranks fifth in deaths at 5,818. Ahead of it, Los Angeles County has 12,250. Cook County has 8,760. Kings County and Queens County, which are part of New York City, have 7,895 and 7,652, respectively. Maricopa is trailed in sixth place by Bronx County, another part of New York City, which has 5,195 deaths.

Arizona can hope that it falls from the top of the list of cases per 100,000. So far, every state at the top of the list has. The primary worry as time passes is that it does not stay near the top of the list for very long.

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