. . . and the District of Columbia.
In the absence of a uniform federal response to the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, the governors of 50 states and the mayor of District of Columbia have each had to make life-and-death decisions on a scale they had probably never imagined before seeking office.
These include scrambling to find health care treatment and personal protective equipment. It also included making decisions regarding testing the people of their states and how to gather and report infections, hospitalizations, and deaths.
Each state approaches testing and reporting differently.
The numbers they provide are not only useful in depicting the extent of infections, they fit into step-wise guidelines regarding when and to what degree to open businesses and schools. And therein is the rub: the 5% or less positivity rate presented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can seem to be a cruel taskmaster. (For simplicity's sake, I will focus on a single marker, positivity rate.)
Governors and the deciding bodies have demands upon them to allow businesses to open. Furthermore, states are not homogeneous entities any more than is the United States a homogeneous country. For a governor to say to one area with 6.4% positivity, no, and to another with 4.9% positivity is a decision with political ramifications. Individual governments often fudge their figures or move the markers (or both) to placate those wanting to place the disease behind them, open up for business and pretend normalcy. I call this the Throw Momma from the Train strategy.
I spoke in my last entry about the DeSantis Award for states dishonestly manipulating their numbers. In that post I noted that Florida's Department of Health not only posted fake numbers to show their positivity rate had gone down, they made the audacious claim that the goal for positivity was below 10%. Even before this spurious goal was achieved Governor DeSantis allowed the businesses in his state to open up.
In Iowa a local positivity rate of 20% is being used by Governor Kim "DeSantis" Reynolds to determine whether children can return to school. From the AP: "If community transmission is worse than a 20% positivity rate over a two-week period, districts also could seek to send students home for virtual learning."
Neither DeSantis nor Reynolds wins this week's DeSantis Award. I'll give that to Jay Inslee of Washington State. Washington State had been reporting how many individuals have been tested for COVID-19. Beginning August 3rd, they stopped reporting their testing altogether. According to their data dashboard, "Updates are anticipated to resume the week of August 24th after we switch to the new methodology reporting total testing volumes rather than just the number of new individuals who got a negative or positive test result for the first time." (Screenshot from the COVID Tracking Project) Based on information from states that report both total tests and individuals tested, this will increase the number of tests given by about 30%, consequently lowering the positivity rate by a third.
The week ending August 15th has been crazy with several states lowering down or jumping up their tests by a third or more. Texas and Florida, which had last week dropped their testing dramatically a week ago, this week had a sizable bump (although not enough to get them to previous levels). Other states made deep cuts to their testing for the first time.
High Number of Tests/Low Number of Tests.
I will divide states into three groups according to their weekly new tests and weekly new cases. These numbers are normalized for population and reflect the week ending August 15th.
Those states that have a high number of tests and low number of new cases.
Maine is 50th in new cases and 19th in testing.
Connecticut, 48th in new cases per million, 11th in testing.
New York, 47th in new cases per million, 3rd in testing.
New Jersey, 45th in new cases per million, 8th in testing.
West Virginia is 40th in new cases and 13th in testing.
New Mexico, 39th in new cases per million, 10th in testing.
Rhode Island, 38th in new cases per million, 5th in testing.
Michigan, 37th in new cases per million, 6th in testing.
District of Columbia, 34th in new cases per million, 1st in testing.
Alaska, 33rd in new cases per million, 2nd in testing.
Those states that have a low number of tests and a high number of new cases.
Florida is 1st in new cases per million and 26th in testing.
Nevada is 3rd in new cases per million and 42nd in testing
Idaho is 5th in new cases per million and 44th in testing.
Mississippi is 6th in new cases per million and 51st in testing.
Missouri is 11th in new cases per million and 31st in testing.
Kansas is 15th in new cases per million and 43rd in testing.
Dishonorable mention goes to Arizona. Arizona has fallen to 25th in new cases. They have also fallen to 49th in new tests.
Those states with a high number of tests and a high number of new cases.
Georgia is 2nd in new cases and 15th in testing.
California is 4th in new cases and 7th in testing.
Tennessee is 8th in new cases and 12th in testing.
Louisiana is 9th in new cases and 4th in testing.
Hawaii
I'd like to highlight what's going on in Hawaii. It deserves attention. Four weeks ago they were 50th place in the nation in new cases per million per week. For the week ending August 15th they were 18th and they have continued to rise this past week. (I don't have a new ranking for them for the week ending August 22nd, that will require reporting from all the states and sorting through the numbers.)
All the States in Ranked Order.
After lowering their testing rate by 50% for the two weeks ending August 8th, Florida has bumped up their testing by 33.4%, moving them from 40th to 26th place.
Georgia is maintaining a decent amount of testing, this week ranked 15th.
Nevada has had some of the harshest impact of any state in terms of economy: they rely a great deal on tourism. They decided to open the casinos early on and have been paying for it in terms of a high rate of new cases, week in, week out. On July 4th, they ranked 6th in testing. They have cut their testing rate by more than half since then, and this week they rank 40th.
California increased its testing by 23.0% this past week to become 7th in testing. The new cases they found were enough to push them to 4th place in new cases.
Idaho has always been stingy with testing, this week ranked 44th.
Mississippi ranked 51st in testing this past week.
After spending a week ranked dead last in testing per million, perhaps due to media pressure, Texas more than double its testing rate, putting them at 23rd.
Tennessee has a robust testing program. Even though the testing rate is down by 32.6% over two weeks ago, they are still ranked 12th.
Louisiana has been the state most relentlessly bashed by way of continuing new infections. With the exception of one week, they have always been in the top third among states and have spent fourteen out of twenty-two weeks in the top ten. They have, in general, maintained a high rate of testing, for each of the past ten weeks among the top five. This week they ranked fourth in testing in spite of dropping their tests by 23%.
Alabama may be getting over their peak. They rank 21st in terms of testing.
Missouri has bounced up and down in its number of tests the past two weeks, down 20%, up 25%. They currently rank 31st.
South Carolina bumped up their testing this past week, moving from 33rd to 20th place.
North Dakota has a middling number of tests, ranking 24th.
Oklahoma has scaled back its testing. Three weeks ago they were ranked 9th and now they are 22nd.
Kansas increased their tests by 11% to rank 43rd.
Iowa has spent several weeks not getting worse, not getting much better. They rank 35th in testing.
Arkansas re-evaluated its cases this past week and tossed out some old ones, resulting in a dip in their numbers. Their ranking number is green to indicate that it is from adjusted data. As for testing, they rank 14th.
Hawaii has hard an alarming increasing in cases (discussed above). They have moderately increased their testing, this week ranking 33rd.
Nebraska also seems to be meandering along. They ranked 37th in testing.
Indiana has recently had a relatively low number of tests, this week ranking 39th.
Kentucky increased their testing by 23% this past week, now ranking 25th.
Illinois has had a second wave. Their testing is the 9th best rate in the nation.
Wisconsin is either meandering or slowly declining. Perhaps next week will tell. They are ranked 40th for testing, down 36.0% over last week.
I wish Manuel Lin-Miranda had had a moment in Hamilton where he raised one eyebrow and said, "I'm well aware of Delaware." Delaware ranked 30th in testing this past week.
Arizona has had a remarkable recovery, their record marred by ranking 49th in testing.
At 26th place, North Carolina takes the median spot for new cases per million. They ranked 18th for testing.
Maryland ranks 16th for testing.
Utah used to have a decent rate of testing. Now they have joined the bottom of the pack, ranking 47th.
Virginia has maintained a fairly consistent testing over the last few weeks. Their testing rate is also ranked 29th.
South Dakota may be creeping up post-Sturgis motorbike convention. They rank 46th in testing.
Minnesota has dropped its testing by 61% over the past two weeks. They now rank 41st.
Montana has a high plateau of cases. Dare I say a big butte? They rank 36th in testing.
Alaska dropped its testing by 32.3% this past week and still they rank second in the nation.
Several states make it a point to exclude out-of-state residents from their case and death counts. With Florida, it comes across as raising the middle finger at tourists. With Washington, DC: a large number of their tests are for individuals, often federal employees, who live beyond the city limits. (As of August 22nd they tested 167,808 DC residents and 266,046 individuals overall.) They ranked 1st in testing rate this past week.
Ohio is in the middle of the pack with new cases and testing, the latter ranked 28th.
As mentioned above, Washington has not reported their testing numbers for three weeks. From their last reported numbers, they would rank 32nd in testing.
Michigan cases have risen from a very good low in June. They rank 6th in testing.
Rhode Island has maintained one of the highest testing rates, this week ranked 5th.
New Mexico has played it honest, maintaining a high rate of testing, this week ranked 10th.
West Virginia has been strong in its testing, this past week ranking 13th.
Oregon has consistently embraced a low degree of testing, this week breaking out of the bottom 10 for the first week since April and ranking 36th.
Pennsylvania has been stingy in its testing, ranked 48th.
Colorado has also been one of the worst testers, this week ranking 50th.
Wyoming is moderate on testing, this week ranking 34th.
New Jersey is among the states with high-testing and low cases. Their testing rate is 8th. Compare to New York, two figures below and you will see they have followed the same pandemic course.
Okay, you could also compare New Jersey to Massachusetts, although Massachusetts is ranked 17th in new tests.
New York continues with its low rate of new infections, unaffected by the July wildfires in so many other states. It is ranked 3rd in testing rate.
Connecticut ranks 11th in testing.
New Hampshire does have a low rate of new infections, but they are also one of the worst in testing: ranked 45th.
Maine once again has the second best performance in holding down new cases. They are somewhat better than Vermont (below) in testing, ranking 19th.
Vermont continues in last place for new cases per million and 17 weeks in the bottom five. Vermont is 27th in testing rate, one behind Florida, which is first in new cases this week.
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