WalletHub, a personal finance website owned by Evolution Finance, Inc., released a student today (Tuesday, April 7) that ranks all 50 states and the District of Columbia in terms of how aggressively they are combatting the COVID-19 epidemic. Texas ranked 42nd out of 51.

According to a press release on the rankings, “To identify which states are taking the most aggressive actions to combat coronavirus, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 51 key metrics. The data set ranges from tested cases of COVID-19 per capita to school closures, ICU beds and shelter-in-place policies.”

The student released today, based on information as of 2 p.m. CST on Monday, April 7, also compares rankings to results of an earlier survey.

In terms of “aggressiveness against the coronavirus,” with 1 being best and 25 being average, the survey ranked Texas as:
• 19th in state and local public health laboratories per capita.

  • 49th in number of tested cases of COVID-19 per capita.
  • 16th in public hospital system quality.
  • 11th in share of employment from small businesses (small businesses, by the way, are the ones being hardest-hit by the pandemic and efforts to stop it).
  • 31st in population density.
  • 23rd share of workers with access to paid sick leave.
  • 48th in total public health emergency preparedness funding per capita.
  • 41st in public healthcare spending per capita.

The good news is that Texas’ response to the epidemic has improved over time. On March 17, WalletHub ranked Texas as the third least aggressive state. Today, they ranked Texas as the 10th least aggressive.

The state of New York ranks today as overall the most aggressive state in fighting the pandemic, up six spots from March 17. The District of Columbia in today’s survey was rankled second, up 20 spots from last month.

In today’s survey, Oklahoma is the least aggressive state in its response to the epidemic, down five spots from March 17. Other states ranked as less aggressive than Texas are Utah, Florida, Mississippi, Arkansas, Wyoming, Alabama, Nebraska and South Dakota.

Just for the sake of comparison, according to a CDC website updated today, Texas has 7,276 reported cases of COVID-19, compared to 141,100 in New York state and 1,097 cases in D.C.

Among those states ranked as less aggressive in their response than Texas: Utah has 1,716 cases; Florida has 13,214 cases; Mississippi has 1,915 cases, Arkansas has 915 cases; Wyoming has 212 cases; Alabama has 2,006 cases; Nebraska has 412 cases, South Dakota has 288 cases, and Oklahoma has 1,327 cases.

Read the complete report here.

— Tammye Nash