COVID-19 cases have surged tremendously in the U.S. in the last couple of weeks. The latest excuse cited by some federal and state government officials is that the increase is the result of more testing. This note challenges those assertions as flatly dishonest.
Below is a graph comparing the total testing done by about 40 countries over the last ten weeks. These countries include most of Europe, plus relatively affluent countries in the rest of the world – it would be unreasonable to include poor and developing nations in this comparison. The metric used is Strategic Tests (see note below for further detail), which measures the extent to which a country is testing proactively in its effort to control the spread of the pandemic.
Strategic testing has improved significantly in the U.S., from being virtually nonexistent ten weeks ago. But most of the other countries shown have made similar increases. Of the 41 countries shown, as of yesterday (6/25) the U.S. ranks 24th in number of Strategic Tests per 1MM population. Most of the countries included in the above graph have seen significant declines in the number of new cases reported over the last ten weeks, which is not true in the U.S. If the increase in reported COVID-19 cases in the U.S. is due to increased testing, why has the number of new cases continued to decline in those countries, but not the U.S.?
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