County-level testing data from an unexpected source

On September 3, 2020, the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) posted a county-level testing dataset. The dataset specifically provides test positivity rates for every U.S. county, for the week of August 27 to September 2. This is huge. It’s, like, I had to lie down after I saw it, huge. No federal health agency has posted county-level testing data since the pandemic started.

Read More

COVID source callout: South Carolina

The most recent state to go through a dashboarrevision is South Carolina. In late August, the state released a new dashboard, called the County-Level Dashboard, and reorganized much of its information on COVID-19 demographics and other metrics.

Read More

Florida is no longer sending tests to Quest Diagnostics

This past Tuesday, the Florida Department of Health (DOH) announced that the department would stop working with Quest Diagnostics. Quest is one of the biggest COVID-19 test providers in the nation, with test centers and labs set up in many states. The company claimed in a statement to the Tampa Bay Times that it has “provided more COVID-19 testing on behalf of the citizens of Florida than any other laboratory.”

Read More

Three different units for COVID-19 tests

How many people in the U.S. have been tested for COVID-19? This should be a simple question, but instead, we have 50 state public health departments wh report their local testing results in 50 different ways. Different departments have different practices for collecting and cleaning their test results, and beyond that, they report these results using different units, or the definitive magnitudes used to describe values.

Read More