COVID one-year on: state-by-state COVID-19 case rates

The headline: One-year on, America is coming out of its third COVID wave.

The chart:

• Each line is the weekly COVID-19 rate (weekly cases per million) for each state and DC from March 1^st 2020 to March 6^th 2021.
• The states are colored according to the 2020 election result. Blue states voted for Biden, with dark-blue states having the largest Biden vote percentage. Red states voted for Trump, with dark-red states having the largest Trump vote percentage.
• The colored state boxes on the right hand side are ordered according to the states rates (high to low, top to bottom) on March 6^th, 2021.
• Three waves of COVID are apparent::
  • WAVE #1 (mid-March to end of May): The Northeast typified by NY, NJ, MA, RI, CT, DC, and LA’s New Orleans spike.
  • WAVE #2 (mid-June to mid-August): The South typified by AR, FL, LA, MS, SC, TX, GA, and NV.
  • WAVE #3 (early-October to present): Starting in Mid/Mountain-West typified by ND, SD, MT, WI, NE, UT, ID, IA, and WY… and then appearing in almost all states over Thanksgiving and Christmas.
• The first wave is dominated by Blue States.
• The second wave was dominated by Red states.
• Red states dominated the beginning of the third wave (see https://chartedterritory.us/2020/10/17/americas-third-covid-wave/). No such pattern exists now.
• The first wave occurred when testing rates were low. The real rates were likely much higher.
• The second wave occurred when testing rates were relatively steady, and rising test rates during the third wave (see https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/individual-states).
• Almost all states saw their highest rates to date during the third wave (though the true rates were not known during the first phase).

The data: COVID-19 data were collected from USAFacts (https://usafacts.org/visualizations/coronavirus-covid-19-spread-map/). Election data were collected and compiled by Charted Territory.