Coronavirus Cases and Playing Games with Testing

I publish graphs showing each state's weekly rate of new cases per million population. Because I also show where they rank among other states and the District of Columbia, I must wait for each state to report and it is not until near the end of the next week that I can post. 

The first full week of August saw a dramatic phenomenon. A number of states, including two of the most populous, dramatically lowered their testing. Florida, which had filled the number one spot for new cases per population for three straight weeks, came in 40th place for tests per population. Their new case numbers dropped enough to move them into eighth place. 

In honor of Florida's governor Ron DeSantis, I am inaugurating the DeSantis Award for the state most dishonestly manipulating its COVID-19 numbers. The first winner is Florida.

Florida out and out lies about its positivity rates. Here is a graph from its Department of Health official report of the state's positivity rates through the month of July. 

It is ludicrous to believe that Florida positivity rate dropped during the month of July when its new case rate climbed higher than any other state since the beginning of the pandemic. According to this report, the state is counting multiple negative tests from the same person to lower their positivity rate. Johns Hopkins places Florida's positivity rate at over fifteen percent for the month of July on up to this point in August. 

The Florida graph also makes the ridiculous statement that "Target Range is below 10%." Yeah, way below 10%. No state should be comfortable with 10%. Ten percent would rank a state at the 13th worse in the nation, and even then that is because so much of the nation is doing poorly.

I have tracked Florida's testing from week to week. For a time they were middling, most often ranking in the mid-20s among the states. As their case numbers began to rise in July, achieving frightening levels, in response, Florida stepped up their testing to a reasonable number. This ended starting two weeks ago, and now are in 40th place.

Note: In contrast to most other graphs presented here, this is for testing. In Florida, testing is down by 52.2% in two weeks. Their cases dropped by 48.7% over the same period of time.

Texas.

Honorable mention for the DeSantis Award goes to Greg Abbott, governor of Texas. He lowered his testing by 58.8% in one week to achieve last place among states for testing per million residents.The cases dropped by 25.0%. Texas has always hated testing. In the first two weeks when Texas ranked 47th, at a time when two states had not yet began reporting negative tests and one state did not report at all. In the most recent week where they are 49th, Washington did not report its numbers and Wyoming readjusted their testing numbers, reporting negative tests for the week. Texas, was in effect, last place.

*For this week, 49th was last place.

Led by Texas, the second most populous state and Florida, third,  overall new cases have dropped. 

These are the states that have dropped their testing by at least 20% over the last two weeks. Included is their ranking for testing and positivity for the current week (49th being the lowest.) 

	Percent	Current Rank	Current Rank
State	Decrease	Testing	Positivity
Texas	-56.3	49	1
Florida	-52.2	40	3
Oklahoma	-37.3	20	13
Oregon	-34.2	48	21
Arkansas	-30.6	27	7
Utah	-24.6	38	16
Vermont	-23.4	39	49
Delaware	-22.3	24	14
South Dakota	-21.4	45	35

All the States

All the states for the week ending August 8th. As you will see there are others that have lowered their testing rates.

Including its earlier outbreak, this is Louisiana's 12th week in the top five of cases, and first time at number 1. They have been heroic in terms of testing, this week ranked 2nd.

Mississippi dropped their testing by 21.7% over the past week. They are 37th in the nation.

Alabama is up in testing by 13.3% over the last week, but down by 6.8% over the course of two weeks. Not too dramatic a change, perhaps natural fluctuation. 

Georgia has increased their testing by 14.7% over the last two weeks and rank a decent 12th in the nation in testing rates.

Nevada has been one of the hardest hit states economically. People just don't want to gamble both their money and lives. They are 25th in testing down by 17.1% in two weeks.

Idaho ranks 32nd in testing and has been maintaining roughly the same testing rate for several weeks.

Testing in Arkansas is down by 30.6% over the last two weeks. Hasn't helped change their new case rate much.

I commented on Florida in the introduction. They are 3rd highest in positivity rates and fourth highest in death rates.

Tennessee had a substantial drop in new cases, down 28.4% and a substantial drop in new testing, down 32.4%. I can forgive the latter: they were 5th in testing and dropped to 8th. 

South Carolina has dropped their testing by 14.4% this past week. They rank 31st.

Texas has been commented on extensively above. They are last place in testing rates. They cannot drop their testing rate much more to further cover up their poor performance.

Arizona has also had a decided drop in their testing, down by 20.2% over the past week, falling from 33rd to 42nd place. With this many new infections, they should not be 42nd in testing.

Oklahoma had both a sharp drop in new cases and a sharp drop in new tests, the latter falling by 37.4% over two weeks. They rank 20th in testing.

North Dakota has climbed to an alarming rate of new cases. Their testing has dropped by a moderate 12.3% and they rank 18th.

Iowa has been puttering along with their case rate not shrinking by much nor growing. Their testing rate has bounced up and down, now ranking 30th. 

Although California is down 10.3% in testing over two weeks, they have maintained a good ranking, now 10th in the nation.

Missouri had been making a steady march upward in its case numbers until this past week when they dropped their testing by 19.9%. They rank 41st in testing.

Wisconsin has been maintaining a steady testing rate. They rank 16th this week.

North Carolina seems to have peaked, now having three weeks of improvement. Their testing rate is down a modest 8.3% over the last two weeks, perhaps a normal fluctuation. Their testing ranks 14th.

Kansas is stingy with its testing, this week ranking 43rd.

Compared to the previous week, Virginia ran 21 fewer tests. They had 1081 new cases. They rank 22nd in testing rate. 

Illinois may be undergoing a second explosion in cases. They have always been robust in testing. This week they are ranked 7th.

Indiana usually ranks in the mid-40s in terms of testing. This week they were 36th.

Nebraska has maintained roughly the same rate of testing over the past weeks and now rank 34th.

Utah peaked at 4th in new cases and has worked its way down to 25th. Sort of. Its new cases at 25th place are about the same as its new cases at 4th place, the world merely changed around them. Their testing rate is down by 35.0% in the last three weeks and they currently rank 38th.

Minnesota has recently changed from reporting tests performed to people tested, the latter being the correct way of doing it. This has caused an artificial jump in their positivity rates moving from 4.91 to 6.46% over the past week.

Kentucky has maintained the same rate of testing for several weeks now, this week ranked 33rd.

Maryland has spent several weeks climbing into the thousand new cases per million population range. This week they took a step down, perhaps helped by a 13.3% decrease in testing. They currently rank 17th in testing rate.

Notably, for the week ending June 6th, they had the highest rate in the country. With almost that same number, they are 28th.

Hawaii had 4 new cases for the entire for the week ending May 23rd. In recent weeks the case numbers have been doubling and just not stopping. Last week they had 1149 cases. Until recently Hawaii had been stingy with its tests, two weeks ago, ranking 51st. They have been increasing their testing rate, this week ranking 35th.

South Dakota's tests have been creeping up the last four weeks and bear watching. Their testing is down by 21.4% over two weeks and currently in 45th place.

Montana rose from its place at 50th or 51st to the low 30s. Have they peaked? Their once robust testing rate dropped by 28.8% in the past week and now they rank 19th.

Washington has not reported on total tests since August 1st. As of now, they do not have a meaningful testing rate.

The District of Columbia has one of the most robust testing programs in the nation, ranking 3rd in the nation.

Two weeks back, Ohio's testing jumped by 25%. This week they dropped by 23.9%. They are currently at 26th place. 

Rhode Island has always embraced heavy testing. This week they are ranked 5th in testing and 38th in their positivity rate.

Alaska had a one week jump and they are back down. Their testing rate, the best in the country, did not greatly change

Delaware ranks 24th in testing, dropping their testing by 22.3% over the last two weeks..

Like Alaska, New Mexico showed a dramatic drop in case rates while maintaining a strong testing rate, this week ranked 4th.

Like Colorado (below), Oregon performs relatively few tests. Oregon ranked second to last in new tests per million. They have dropped by 34.2% in the last two weeks.

Colorado has dropped its testing by 19.9% over two weeks to rank 46th in testing rate. Its positivity rate is 26th in the nation, the national median.

Michigan is among the states that prove robust testing can mean low case rates. Michigan is 11th in testing.

West Virginia has maintained a steady and decent testing rate, this week ranked 15th. 

Wyoming performed some housekeeping on their database, eliminating tests from their count and having a negative total for the week. Their testing rate was not counted with the others.

Pennsylvania has also been stingy on testing, currently in 44th place.

Massachusetts has maintained a steady low rate of new infections and a moderate rate of testing, this week ranked 20th. 

New Jersey continues its low number of new cases. They rank 13th in testing.

New York continues to have among the lowest number of new cases in the nation along with one of the highest testing rates. For testing they rank 6th. They had 4562 new cases last week and 4562 new cases the week before.

It was a good week for "New" states with Jersey, York and Hampshire ranking 46th through 48th and with New Mexico demonstrating one of the most dramatic improvements (without lowering its testing). New Hampshire has always ranked near the bottom on testing, this week in third to last place. 

Along with being 49th in new cases, Connecticut is 9th in testing rates, combining for the third lowest positivity rate.

Maine has been in competition with Vermont for the lowest rate of new cases for several weeks now. They run 20% more tests than Vermont and are in first place for positivity rate.

Sixth straight week in 51st place, Vermont is 39th in testing. They can afford to be stingy, only one in every 200 tests is positive. 

Martin Hill Ortiz is a Professor of Pharmacology at Ponce Health Sciences University and has researched HIV for over thirty years.

https://mdhillortiz.com/