How bad is coronavirus in Missouri? A new tool allows you to find risk of each county

How bad is the coronavirus in Missouri?

A new resource released Wednesday lets users search information about the threat of COVID-19 and new cases in every county in the United States.

Harvard University experts created the tracker to help residents and governments make informed decisions while navigating the pandemic.

“The public needs clear and consistent information about COVID risk levels in different jurisdictions for personal decision-making, and policy-makers need clear and consistent visibility that permits differentiating policy across jurisdictions,” Danielle Allen, director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, said in a news release.

How the map works

The map uses four colors to illustrate risk levels in every county: green, yellow, orange and red. It uses the number of new cases a day per 100,000 people over the past seven days to determine the appropriate risk category.

The map will change daily as new data are uploaded into the tracker.

Here’s what each color means:

• Green: Less than one case a day per 100,000 people and containment is on track. Use contact tracing and testing to monitor.

• Yellow: One to nine cases a day per 100,000 people, indicating community spread and the need for rigorous testing and tracing.

• Orange: Ten to 24 cases a day per 100,000 people, showing “accelerated spread” and stay-at-home orders are advised.

• Red: Twenty-five or more cases a day per 100,000 people, meaning the county is at a “tipping point” and stay-at-home orders are necessary.

You can find the tool by clicking here.

What’s the situation in Missouri?

In Missouri, the statewide risk level on Wednesday was yellow, with about five new cases a day per 100,000 people from June 22-28.

Only one county was listed in the red category. McDonald County in the southwest corner of the state had nearly 83 new cases a day per 100,000. That was 13th most in the U.S, data show.

On Friday, a Tyson Foods chicken processing plant in the county said 371 employees tested positive for COVID-19, The Associated Press reported.

Six counties were in the orange category.

Jackson County, which includes much of Kansas City, Missouri, was in the yellow category with nearly nine new cases a day per 100,000 people over seven days. St Louis County also fell in the yellow category with about six new cases per 100,000 people.

A look across the U.S.

Across the country, Arizona (42.2), Florida (29.1) and Mississippi (25.4) ranked highest in new cases daily per 100,000 people, and each state was in the red category.

Another 13 states — mostly in the South and West — were in the orange category. South Carolina, Texas, Georgia, California, North Carolina and Idaho are among the states.

Only two states — Vermont and Hawaii — were in the low-risk green category with one new a day case per 100,000 people.

“Unless and until there is a whole of government response, with measurable progress communicated similarly and regularly across every state and locality, U.S. leaders will be left to react to the chaos of the virus — rather than being able to more effectively target interventions to suppress it,” Beth Cameron, vice president for global biological policy and programs at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, said in a statement about the Harvard tool.

This story was originally published July 1, 2020 at 1:07 PM.