OK, our daily update is published. States reported 840k tests completed, nearly 66k new cases, and hospitalizations ticked up. The major observation, however, is that states reported more than 1400 deaths today, the most since May 15. 
The rise in deaths is largely driven by the southern states, which reported 962 deaths today.
Texas has changed their method of counting deaths, and Hurricane Hanna has hit the state. This may have caused some backlog, which could have influenced the large number of deaths (313) they reported today.
The hotspot states remain hotspots, even as their cases plateau a little or even decline. However, we’re now seeing more deaths reported in these states. Today, 773 deaths were reported by Arizona, California, Florida, and Texas alone.
All of our caveats about hospitalization data remain. It would not be surprising to see hospitalizations creep back up as the data quality improves.
For more details see: covidtracking.com/blog/whats-goi…
For more details see: covidtracking.com/blog/whats-goi…
A correction. Missouri recently changed the way they reported cases. We followed their change, but mistakenly used the older method today, which initially made it seem like the state had more cases. We regret the error.
And finally, a selection of our charts are available here: covidtracking.com/data/charts
