3.5 million. Twice.

July 21, 2020

Two pandemic milestones intersected this week at counts of 3.5 million. On July 15, confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. reached 3.5 million. Five days later, requests to 2-1-1 helplines during the pandemic hit the same number. We tallied all requests to 2-1-1s from March 12 to July 20, 2020, as reported by 32 states that participate in a daily tracking system. Cumulative requests during the COVID-19 pandemic are shown on the chart in teal. For comparison, requests from the same period during 2019 are shown on in yellow. Mouse over each line to see the daily and running totals of 2-1-1 requests. During the pandemic, requests reached 1 million on April 13th and 2 million on May 25th before ending the day on Monday, June 20th at 3,519,948 requests. Compared to the same dates in 2019, requests have been over 100% higher during COVID-19. About 20% of 2-1-1 requests during the pandemic have been seeking information or referrals about COVID-19, including exposure, risk, prevention, personal protective equipment, testing and treatment. States included in the analysis are: AL, AR, CA, CT, DE, FL, HI, IA, IL, IN, KS, KY, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, NC, NE, NJ, NV, NY, OH, PA, SC, SD, TN, VA, WA, WI and WY. Two states (MI, WA) did not have data for all or part of 2019.

Contributors: Rachel Garg, Balaji Golla, Irum Javed, Matthew Kreuter