by Calculated Risk on 3/26/2020 05:35:00 PM

Tests per day is a key number to track (along with actual cases and, sadly, deaths). But total tests were a key for South Korea slowing the spread of COVID-19. South Korea has been conducting 15,000 to 20,000 tests per day with a 51 million population, so the US needs to test around 130,000 per day.

The US reported 146,044 tests in the last 24 hours.  Some of these were probably late reports.

Note: About 12% of tests were positive in the most recent report (some are still pending).   However in some states, private labs aren't reporting the number of negative results, so this percentage may be high.

It would be helpful if there was a national reporting system for total tests and positive and negative results.  Apparently, new legislation includes this reporting.

Click on graph for larger image.

This data is from the COVID Tracking Project.
States are improving their reporting.

If testing can be maintained at this level, then that might be sufficient for test-and-trace.

Test. Test. Test. But protect our healthcare workers first!