As of this morning, the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States just passed 33,000. By the time you finish this story, it will probably be higher, and by next week—who knows?
Of course, that number only reflects how many actual coronavirus tests are being carried out. The World Health Organization has repeatedly said that aggressive testing is absolutely imperative in our efforts to control the spread of COVID-19—otherwise it’s like trying to “fight this pandemic blindfolded,” as director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus put it in a press conference this week.
Back in the United States, the Trump administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have both been criticized for botching the early rollout of coronavirus tests, and they’re still trying to catch up. In states across the country, many people who want a test are unable to get one.
So how does your state hold up? An online tracker called the COVID Tracking Project—built by data scientist Jeff Hammerbacher, with help from The Atlantic journalists Robinson Meyer and Alexis Madrigal—gives you a clearer window into each state’s progress, both in terms of how many tests have been conducted and how many people have tested positive or negative.
Drilling down into the tool, you can see that states’ testing capacity varies greatly. In New York—now the epicenter of the pandemic—more than 15,000 cases have been confirmed, but more than 61,000 tests have been carried out so far. Contrast that with, say, Florida, which has about 1,000 confirmed cases but has only carried out about 11,000 tests.
- COVID Tracking Project (find it here)
The tracker also lets you view your state’s history so you can see how many confirmed cases and tests are happening each day. Of course, the tool is only as good as the data that underlies it, and not all states are equally transparent in that regard. That’s why the project includes a letter grade next to each state, rating the data’s quality. The site also includes direct links to the data sources for each state.
Check out the most recent data here or via the link above.
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