States and COVID-19: KFF Tool Provides State-Level Data on Cases and Deaths and State Policy Actions in Response to the Pandemic

As COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, spreads rapidly in the United States, a new tool from KFF provides the latest state-level data on COVID-19 cases and deaths, provider capacity and the various policy actions that states have taken to combat the crisis.   

The tool can be a useful resource for journalists, policymakers, health care professionals and others who are tracking the spread of the pandemic, as states, public health officials and the federal government work to provide access to testing for the virus and treatment for those who contract the potentially fatal disease it causes.

The tool features regularly updated state level data about:

• COVID-19 cases and deaths
  
  
• State policy actions, including emergency declarations; steps to waive cost sharing for COVID-19 testing and prior authorization requirements; paid sick leave; special enrollment periods in Affordable Care Act Marketplaces; early prescription refills and free cost vaccine for COVID-19 when one becomes available.
  
  
• Provider capacity, including numbers of hospital beds as well as numbers of community health centers and health center delivery sites.
  
  
• Medicaid expansion status, the distribution of health insurance coverage across the population (including the share and number who are uninsured), private insurance deductibles, and the share of adults at risk of serious illness if infected with coronavirus.

“States are on the frontline of this epidemic, and these are important factors that may play a role in how effectively states respond,” said KFF President and CEO Drew Altman. “As this public health crisis evolves, states will need to learn from each other and credible facts will be crucially important.”

The tool will be updated daily. Also available is KFF’s COVID-19 Coronavirus Tracker, which  provides the number of cases and deaths from novel coronavirus by country, the trend in case and death counts by country, and a global map showing which countries have cases and deaths.

For more data and analyses related to COVID-19 and the novel coronavirus, visit our special topic page about the pandemic on kff.org.

Filling the need for trusted information on national health issues, the Kaiser Family Foundation is a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, California.