COVID-19 by US county

Bonnie Cooper

How does mortality compare across US counties?
How does the impact of COVID-19 compare to other leading causes of death?

Motivation for this Project:

What to believe? … conflicting news headlines



The Data


USAFacts.org

  • COVID-19 related deaths by US County
  • US population by US County


The CDC

  • WONDER database query:
    • top 15 leading causes of death
    • each leading cause of death by county

USAFacts COVID-19 deaths by US County


Representing the data as # Fatalities

| Median | 0.00 | | Mean | 24.26 | | Max | 5902.00 |

Representing the data as Mortality Rates



CDC: Leading Causes of Deaths by US County

Comparing COVID-19 to Leading Causes of Death


Disease Annual Death Toll
Heart Disease 269,583
Cancer 252,500
COVID-19 88,217 to 293,381
Stroke 60,833
Alzheimer's 50,417
Drug Overdoses 29,265
Suicide 19,583

source: news.berkeley.edu

Comparing COVID-19 to Leading Causes of Death

Conclusions

  • The vast majority of US counties report very low incidences of COVID-19 fatalities. However, for several counties, the death are significantly much higher.
  • The distribution of mortality rates lends to understanding that even less populous counties are impacted by the virus.
  • The mortality rates for leading causes of death affect more counties and in a relatively even manor in comparison to COVID-19 (as of May 8th 2020).
  • For many counties, the current mortality rate, with only several months worth of deaths to base a sum on, already excedes the mortality rate for several of the leading causes of disease in the US.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS: There is a positive trend for the COVID-19 mortality rate to increase with county population. It would be very interesting to query the CDC's WONDER database for demogaphic county data to better model mortality rate

Thank You for your Attention!

COVID-19 Mortality by County for NorthEastern US