This post tries to make sense of the disjuncture between rising cases & stable/declining death toll nationwide. Bunch of different issues. But one thing I did was put together these graphs to help myself visualize whats happening in the hardest hit states. https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/making-sense-of-the-happy-mystery-of-the-declining-covid-death-toll

2/ Quite simply, in the hardest hit states the death toll is rising with a 2 to 3 week lag from the surge showing up in the cases about as you'd expect. Here's Florida.

3/ Here's Texas.

4/ Here's Arizona.

5/ The exception that proves the rule is California. As you can see, the number of fatalities has been stable and even trended slightly down.

6/ That will likely change. But the reason is there in the numbers. Unlike these other states California's positivity number has remained pretty stable. In California, unlike these other states, expanded testing probably is accounting for a significant amount of the case rise.

7/ You can see the differences in these states positivity trends here.

8/ In each graph, the trend line is a 7 day moving average with absolute daily numbers pushed to the background. Graphs by @TPM; data from @COVID19Tracking and state reporting sites.