Testing is key for getting the COVID-19 pandemic under control. Unfortunately, some states are testing more than others. But how does your state stack up? A new interactive tool by Peter Walker, head of growth at media analytics firm Public Relay, helps shed some light on that.
The tool offers a slew of interactive charts that shows all sorts of testing-related metrics, including the states testing the most, the states with the highest percentage of positive tests, and a map that shows if states have more or fewer deaths and tests than the day before.
As for the states that have tested the largest amount of their population, Rhode Island leads the way with 8.61% of its population tested so far. New York is a distant second with just over 6% of the population tested. North Dakota, Massachusetts, and Louisiana round out the top five. The states that have tested the fewest amount of their population are Maine, Colorado, Texas, Virginia, and South Carolina. All those states come in at only 1.75% or less of their population tested.
The states that have seen the largest percentage of positive tests include New Jersey, with 44% of those tested returning positive results; New York with 28% positive; Connecticut at 26%; and Washington, D.C., and Delaware, both at 21%. States with the least amount of positive results are North Dakota with 3% testing positive; West Virginia, Montana, and Hawaii at 2%; and Alaska at 1% testing positive.
The tool also offers a dashboard (under the “Maps” button) that shows which states are testing more or fewer people than they did yesterday, as well as which states have more or fewer deaths and positive tests than the day before. As it stands now, there have been just over 8.9 million tests performed in the United States, according to the tool. That equates to just over 27,000 tests per million people. In other words, testing in America has a long way to go.
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