Testing Hub

All State Comparison of Testing Efforts

Through up-to-date visuals, track how testing volume, positivity, and proportion give a sense of whether the occurrence of new cases is slowing or growing.

THE CRC HAS STOPPED COLLECTING TESTING DATA

This chart is officially out of date as more than 30 states across the US have stopped reporting testing positivity or significantly scaled down their testing reports. The CRC data visualizations will remain available for past dates and reports, but will no longer have up to date information on testing positivity and criteria.

STOPPED REPORTING: 09/21/2022

About this page:

This page was last updated on Wednesday, September 14, 2022 at 06:58 AM EDT.

Cases, Deaths, and Testing in All 50 States

U.S.: Are We Testing Enough?

This graph shows the total number of cases, deaths, and tests performed in each state per 100,000 people. By comparing the rate of cases and deaths, we can get a sense of how COVID-19 has affected each state. Since confirmed case numbers may be dependent on how much testing a state is doing, it is also important to see how many tests have occurred in each state. If people who are infected cannot get tested, they will not be counted as a confirmed case in the state’s data.

Data Sources:

As of March 3, 2021, testing data is drawn from JHU CCI. Prior to that, the data source was the The COVID Tracking Project.

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cases data from JHU CSSE

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and population from ACS 1-year data (2018).

3/24 Note: Previous spikes in historical data for total and positive tests in the graphic were anomalies caused by the shift in data collection that began March 3 when the Coronavirus Resource Center (CRC) began obtaining data from the Johns Hopkins Centers for Civic Impact rather than from the COVID Tracking Project (CTP), which ceased operations March 7. The CRC also now includes non-resident tests in Alaska and Florida and probable cases in Hawaii.

It is important to track the testing that states are doing to diagnose people with COVID-19 infection in order to gauge the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S. and to know whether enough testing is occurring. When states report the number of COVID-19 tests performed, this should include the number of viral tests performed and the number of patients for which these tests were performed. Currently, states may not be distinguishing overall tests administered from the number of individuals who have been tested. This is an important limitation to the data that is available to track testing in the U.S., and states should work to address it.

When states report testing numbers for COVID-19 infection, they should not include serology or antibody tests. Antibody tests are not used to diagnose active COVID-19 infection and they do not provide insights into the number of cases of COVID-19 diagnosed or whether viral testing is sufficient to find infections that are occurring within each state. States that include serology tests within their overall COVID-19 testing numbers are misrepresenting their testing capacity and the extent to which they are working to identify COVID-19 infections within their communities. States that wish to track the number of serology tests being performed should report those numbers separately from viral tests performed to diagnose COVID-19.

Learn more about why the positivity rates shown on our site may differ from state calculations