COVID-19 Compilation: Part 6 - April 19-25, 2020
On March 14th, I began posting daily updates to my facebook page, regarding the status of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a backbone for this, I have used data from worldometers. I had no particular plan at the time, but as things have evolved I have kept going at one post per day, eventually settling on a more or less standard format and one topic per day.
This blog post compiles the period of April 19th through April 25th. I have corrected some typos, augmented with links to original sources, and used some basic html to improve formatting; otherwise these are presented as-is from the original posts.
Apr 19 | Apr 20 | Apr 21 | Apr 22 | Apr 23 | Apr 24 | Apr 25
APRIL 19:
this past day's COVID-19 stats summary:
Worldwide, there were 75,471 total COVID-19 cases today, and 4,957 deaths. In the US, there were 25,511 total COVID-19 cases today, and 1,534 deaths.
All of these numbers are down sharply from Saturday's numbers, with what is now becoming a somewhat standard caveat that Sunday numbers may not have full reporting from every location. Nonetheless, this is the lowest worldwide death total since April 5th (2 Sundays ago), the lowest US case total since April 12th (last Sunday), and the lowest US death total since the 5th.
Worldwide cumulative totals are now 2.41 million total cases and 165,004 deaths, with 764,303 total cases and 40,548 deaths in the United States.
Several US States have started to loosen shutdown restrictions: Florida, Minnesota, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut have all loosened at least some restrictions, typically on things such as outdoor recreational activities. Several other states have plans to reopen some activities over the next two weeks.
Researches have called for testing levels at about 1% of the population per week, or about 500,000 per day, in order to have enough information to know when and where reopening will be safe. Presently, the US is testing less than one third that amount (the total for the weekend was just under 290,000).
Re-opening, then, is becoming a live mass experiment. This is not to pre-judge the results, though.
We've had at least one mass experiment already in April.
On April 7th, Wisconsin was forced to go through an in-person election, and about 450,000 Wisconsinites showed up at the polls to vote (another 1.1 million voted absentee). There were dire predictions then of a spike in Wisconsin COVID-19 cases, but at least so far that has not happened: The first six days of April, leading up to election day, averaged 182 new cases, with a high of 199 on April 1st; 5 of the 6 days had more than 170 new cases. The most recent 6 day period, ending today, when we would have expected to see a spike developing, has seen an average of 153 new cases, with a high of 170 on April 17th.
We can speculate that the primary voters were exceptionally careful in social distancing during the primary, or that there might have been a steeper decline in new cases without the primary, or that we may yet see a spike from the primary, or some combination thereof. The contrarian view is the voting process might have been less dangerous than feared.
Initial photographs from the Florida beaches suggest that Floridian beachgoers are not showing nearly the same level of caution wrt social distancing that Wisconsinite voters showed 12 days ago. We have little choice now but to observe how that plays out.
see https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ for more
Coronavirus Update (Live): 2,406,240 Cases and 165,004 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer
Apr 19 | Apr 20 | Apr 21 | Apr 22 | Apr 23 | Apr 24 | Apr 25
APRIL 20:
this past day's COVID-19 stats summary:
Worldwide, there were 73,828 total COVID-19 cases today, and 5,366 deaths. In the US, there were 28,123 total COVID-19 cases today, and 1,939 deaths.
Worldwide cumulative totals are now 2.48 million total cases and 170,397 deaths, with 792,759 total cases and 42,514 deaths in the United States.
Several European countries had sharp drops today in the total of new cases:
Coronavirus Update (Live): 2,481,045 Cases and 170,425 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer
Apr 19 | Apr 20 | Apr 21 | Apr 22 | Apr 23 | Apr 24 | Apr 25
APRIL 21:
this past day's COVID-19 stats summary:
Worldwide, there were 75,252 total COVID-19 cases today, and 7,062 deaths. In the US, there were 25,985 total COVID-19 cases today, and 2,804 deaths. The 2,804 deaths represents a new record for the US.
Worldwide cumulative totals are now 2.56 million total cases and 177,459 deaths, with 818,744 total cases and 45,318 deaths in the United States.
New York had its lowest number of new cases since March 20th. At 4,461 new cases and 764 deaths, New York still led the United States today, but that may change soon.
Emerging US hotspots include facilities such as meat packing plants and prisons, typically in areas away from large cities. Meat packing facilities first in South Dakota and now in Iowa have been particularly hard hit; Iowa had a 15% jump in its total cases today.
A state prison in Marion County, Ohio now has the largest outbreak in the United States, with about 3/4 of the inmates having tested positive. That one prison has accounted for nearly 2,000 new cases, and another prison in Ohio has accounted for about 1,000 more.
Unlike nursing homes that have been hotspots across the nation since the start of the pandemic, the cases in these locations are hitting younger populations. It remains to be seen what this will mean for the overall spread of the virus.
see https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ for more
Coronavirus Update (Live): 2,556,798 Cases and 177,459 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer
Apr 19 | Apr 20 | Apr 21 | Apr 22 | Apr 23 | Apr 24 | Apr 25
APRIL 22:
this past day's COVID-19 stats summary:
Worldwide, there were 79,959 new COVID-19 cases today, and 6,607 deaths. In the US, there were 29,973 new cases today, and 2,341 deaths.
Worldwide cumulative totals are now 2.64 million cases and 184,066 deaths, with 848,717 cases and 47,659 deaths in the US.
In the US today, there were noticeable spikes in two states: Connecticut and Wisconsin.
In Connecticut, Governor Ned Lamont said, “The CDC changed their definition in the last few days of both a positive case and somebody who dies of complications related to COVID or if somebody had COVID-like symptoms and passed away. We are just truing this up so we keep with the CDC and federal definition.”
In Wisconsin, the spike in new cases appears to be related to an outbreak in a Green Bay meat packing plant with nearly 150 new cases. Outbreaks had previously been reported in several other states, as I highlighted in yesterday's update.
California confirmed that a person who died there on February 6th had COVID-19. Per the Santa Clara coroner's office: "Because there was continued suspicion by the medical examiner that these deaths were caused by Covid-19, the medical examiner sent autopsy tissue to the CDC for definitive testing," Previously, the first known COVID-19 death in the United States was in Washington state on February 29th. As the person had no "significant travel history," per the county's chief medical officer, the case is presumed to be from community spread. Therefore, it's now believed that COVID-19 was present in California at least by mid-January, and that there are likely many other deaths from February and possibly January due to the virus.
see https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ for more
Coronavirus Update (Live): 2,633,279 Cases and 183,894 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer
Apr 19 | Apr 20 | Apr 21 | Apr 22 | Apr 23 | Apr 24 | Apr 25
APRIL 23:
this past day's COVID-19 stats summary:
Worldwide, there were 85,021 new COVID-19 cases today, and 6,601 deaths. In the US, there were 31,487 new cases today, and 2,325 deaths.
Worldwide cumulative totals are now 2.72 million cases and 190,528 deaths, with 880,204 cases and 49,845 deaths in the US.
ADDENDUM: After worldometers published its daily totals, they announced that they were adding VA data to the US totals. This added 6,273 additional cases and 391 deaths that had not previously been counted. US totals are now 886,442 cases and 50,236 deaths.
Of all of the countries in the world with more than 100 total cases, the country that currently has the highest Case Fatality Rate (CFR) is Belgium, at 15.2% (6,490 deaths out of 42,797 cases).
I've noted the limitations of CFR as a metric previously, as we clearly don't have full counts of either cases or deaths yet; it's widely believed that COVID-19 mortality is well under 1%.
Nonetheless, the case of Belgium was interesting to me. We haven't heard many horror stories from Belgium as the UK (3rd, at 13.6%), Italy (currently 5th, at 13.5%) or Spain (9th at 10.4%), nor is it a political flash point for discussions of countries that haven't locked down such as Sweden (6th at 12.1%) or the Netherlands (7th at 11.7%).
Why is Belgium, of all countries, topping the list?
Turns out, Belgium doesn't do its counting the same way much of the rest of the world does.
Belgium has counted 6,490 deaths due to COVID-19. 3420 of those -- 52.7% -- have been in nursing homes. And, of the nursing home cases, just 185, or 5,4%, were tested for COVID-19. That is, 49.8% of the total deaths listed in the COVID-19 totals for Belgium are presumptive; they would not be counted as COVID-19 in the United States or many other countries.
Per CDC data, the total of COVID-19 deaths as of April 18th was 23,358, based on death certificate data received and coded by the National Center for Health Statistics. That represented about 60% of the cases listed at worldometers as of the 18th. The CDC count for influenza as of the same date was 5,530.
see https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ for more
Coronavirus Update (Live): 2,716,806 Cases and 190,528 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer
Apr 19 | Apr 20 | Apr 21 | Apr 22 | Apr 23 | Apr 24 | Apr 25
APRIL 24:
this past day's COVID-19 stats summary:
Worldwide, there were 105,616 new COVID-19 cases today, and 6,174 deaths. In the US, there were 38,764 new cases today, and 1,951 deaths.
The number of new cases, both in the US and the world, are new one-day records.
Worldwide cumulative totals are now 2.83 million cases and 197,091 deaths, with 925.038 cases and 52,185 deaths in the US.
In yesterday's update I took a look at Belgium's numbers, in particular how Belgium's transparency with its counts is coloring the perception of their response to the crisis.
Today, we see another set example:
In South America, Ecuador has been a hot spot. A major report in The Telegraph on April 8th was titled, "Cardboard coffins and bodies line streets of Ecuador in ominous warning to rest of Latin America." But officially Ecuador had relatively few cases, and not enough deaths to account for all of those caskets.
That changed today, as Ecuador reported 11,536 new cases, more than doubling the official count. Per a Reuters report, the health minister said this resulted from "delayed testing."
Officially, Ecuador now has 576 deaths from COVID-19. However, per the same report. "during the first 15 days of April authorities registered 6,700 deaths in Guayaquil’s surrounding province of Guayas, against an average of 2,000 deaths in January and February." Guyas is home to approximately 3 million out of Ecuador's 17 million people.
Presumably, many more of the 4,700 excess deaths will eventually be attributed to COVID-19, and we can also suppose there are likely thousands more in Ecuador's other provinces.
Not only do these changes now put Ecuador as the #1 hotspot per capita in South America, this also should put a damper on the notion that the virus is killed by warmer weather.
But these cases aren't new today, they were just reported today. The same will be true when the thousands of deaths in Ecuador are inevitably reported.
Tomorrow, I'll take a look at the US new cases totals, and the recent new highs in several states.
see https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ for more
Coronavirus Update (Live): 2,827,391 Cases and 197,003 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer
Apr 19 | Apr 20 | Apr 21 | Apr 22 | Apr 23 | Apr 24 | Apr 25
APRIL 25:
this past day's COVID-19 stats summary:
Worldwide, there were 90,371 new COVID-19 cases today, and 6,069 deaths. In the US, there were 35,419 new cases today, and 2,065 deaths.
Worldwide cumulative totals are now 2.92 million cases and 203,165 deaths, with 960,651 cases and 54,256 deaths in the US.
Over the past two days I highlighted Belgium and Ecuador, including how their data has been reported.
Today, the United States. The totals of new cases have been way up the past few days, including a record 38,958 cases yesterday.
Several states have recorded single day highs for new cases. Illinois has had nearly 5,000 new cases the past 2 days, including a record 2724 yesterday. New York is back over 10,000 new cases today.
The biggest difference?
Testing.
Partly this is delayed results coming in from various labs. But it's also reflective of increased capacity.
Illinois had more than 16,000 test results reported on Friday; it had been under 10,000 before then.
New York had nearly 47,000 tests reported in today's numbers (worldometers reports yesterday's state numbers today, due to when New York publishes its data); before yesterday the state had never reported more than 27,000 results.
For the United States as a whole, the number of reported tests on Wednesday was 137,950. The 3 days since then have averaged 317,965. About 11% of those tests have come back positive. This is a dramatic decrease from the prior 3 days, when about 18% of US tests came back positive. 18% is also the overall rate of positive test results in the US, over the course of the pandemic.
Incrementally, a far smaller percentage of the increased tests are coming back positive. But the net results is thousands of cases being flagged that would have been missed before due to not having been tested at all.
see https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ for more
Coronavirus Update (Live): 2,917,353 Cases and 203,111 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer
Apr 19 | Apr 20 | Apr 21 | Apr 22 | Apr 23 | Apr 24 | Apr 25
This blog post compiles the period of April 19th through April 25th. I have corrected some typos, augmented with links to original sources, and used some basic html to improve formatting; otherwise these are presented as-is from the original posts.
APRIL 19:
this past day's COVID-19 stats summary:
Worldwide, there were 75,471 total COVID-19 cases today, and 4,957 deaths. In the US, there were 25,511 total COVID-19 cases today, and 1,534 deaths.
All of these numbers are down sharply from Saturday's numbers, with what is now becoming a somewhat standard caveat that Sunday numbers may not have full reporting from every location. Nonetheless, this is the lowest worldwide death total since April 5th (2 Sundays ago), the lowest US case total since April 12th (last Sunday), and the lowest US death total since the 5th.
Worldwide cumulative totals are now 2.41 million total cases and 165,004 deaths, with 764,303 total cases and 40,548 deaths in the United States.
Several US States have started to loosen shutdown restrictions: Florida, Minnesota, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut have all loosened at least some restrictions, typically on things such as outdoor recreational activities. Several other states have plans to reopen some activities over the next two weeks.
Researches have called for testing levels at about 1% of the population per week, or about 500,000 per day, in order to have enough information to know when and where reopening will be safe. Presently, the US is testing less than one third that amount (the total for the weekend was just under 290,000).
Re-opening, then, is becoming a live mass experiment. This is not to pre-judge the results, though.
We've had at least one mass experiment already in April.
On April 7th, Wisconsin was forced to go through an in-person election, and about 450,000 Wisconsinites showed up at the polls to vote (another 1.1 million voted absentee). There were dire predictions then of a spike in Wisconsin COVID-19 cases, but at least so far that has not happened: The first six days of April, leading up to election day, averaged 182 new cases, with a high of 199 on April 1st; 5 of the 6 days had more than 170 new cases. The most recent 6 day period, ending today, when we would have expected to see a spike developing, has seen an average of 153 new cases, with a high of 170 on April 17th.
We can speculate that the primary voters were exceptionally careful in social distancing during the primary, or that there might have been a steeper decline in new cases without the primary, or that we may yet see a spike from the primary, or some combination thereof. The contrarian view is the voting process might have been less dangerous than feared.
Initial photographs from the Florida beaches suggest that Floridian beachgoers are not showing nearly the same level of caution wrt social distancing that Wisconsinite voters showed 12 days ago. We have little choice now but to observe how that plays out.
see https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ for more
Coronavirus Update (Live): 2,406,240 Cases and 165,004 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer
APRIL 20:
this past day's COVID-19 stats summary:
Worldwide, there were 73,828 total COVID-19 cases today, and 5,366 deaths. In the US, there were 28,123 total COVID-19 cases today, and 1,939 deaths.
Worldwide cumulative totals are now 2.48 million total cases and 170,397 deaths, with 792,759 total cases and 42,514 deaths in the United States.
Several European countries had sharp drops today in the total of new cases:
- Italy -- 2256 cases, least since March 10
- Germany -- 1323 cases, least since March 15
- Switzerland -- 204 cases, least since March 16
- Austria -- 46 cases, least since March 9
- Singapore: Touted in the early days of the pandemic as a model country in fighting the virus without a lockdown, Singapore has seen its number of cases go up by almost 60% in the past 3 days, and at more than 8,000 cases is now the hardest hit country in Southest Asia. Singapore had more new cases than Germany today.
- Bangladesh: This country of more than 160 million people didn't get its 100th documented case of COVID-19 until 2 weeks ago. Now Bangladesh is on an exponential curve, with a record 492 cases today and 60% growth in new cases over the past 3 days. Bangladesh has performed fewer than 27,000 total COVID-19 tests; 35 US States have performed more. Bangladesh has a total of just under 142,000 hospital beds, including 1,169 ICU beds (the United States, with a population just over twice Bangladesh's, presently has just under 14,000 ICU cases). On Saturday, the funeral of Maulana Zubayer Ahmad Ansari, an Islamic teacher, drew a crowd estimated at more than 100,000 people. To put it exceptionally mildly, Bangladesh is grossly unprepared for what is likely to hit them over the next days and weeks.
Coronavirus Update (Live): 2,481,045 Cases and 170,425 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer
APRIL 21:
this past day's COVID-19 stats summary:
Worldwide, there were 75,252 total COVID-19 cases today, and 7,062 deaths. In the US, there were 25,985 total COVID-19 cases today, and 2,804 deaths. The 2,804 deaths represents a new record for the US.
Worldwide cumulative totals are now 2.56 million total cases and 177,459 deaths, with 818,744 total cases and 45,318 deaths in the United States.
New York had its lowest number of new cases since March 20th. At 4,461 new cases and 764 deaths, New York still led the United States today, but that may change soon.
Emerging US hotspots include facilities such as meat packing plants and prisons, typically in areas away from large cities. Meat packing facilities first in South Dakota and now in Iowa have been particularly hard hit; Iowa had a 15% jump in its total cases today.
A state prison in Marion County, Ohio now has the largest outbreak in the United States, with about 3/4 of the inmates having tested positive. That one prison has accounted for nearly 2,000 new cases, and another prison in Ohio has accounted for about 1,000 more.
Unlike nursing homes that have been hotspots across the nation since the start of the pandemic, the cases in these locations are hitting younger populations. It remains to be seen what this will mean for the overall spread of the virus.
see https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ for more
Coronavirus Update (Live): 2,556,798 Cases and 177,459 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer
APRIL 22:
this past day's COVID-19 stats summary:
Worldwide, there were 79,959 new COVID-19 cases today, and 6,607 deaths. In the US, there were 29,973 new cases today, and 2,341 deaths.
Worldwide cumulative totals are now 2.64 million cases and 184,066 deaths, with 848,717 cases and 47,659 deaths in the US.
In the US today, there were noticeable spikes in two states: Connecticut and Wisconsin.
In Connecticut, Governor Ned Lamont said, “The CDC changed their definition in the last few days of both a positive case and somebody who dies of complications related to COVID or if somebody had COVID-like symptoms and passed away. We are just truing this up so we keep with the CDC and federal definition.”
In Wisconsin, the spike in new cases appears to be related to an outbreak in a Green Bay meat packing plant with nearly 150 new cases. Outbreaks had previously been reported in several other states, as I highlighted in yesterday's update.
California confirmed that a person who died there on February 6th had COVID-19. Per the Santa Clara coroner's office: "Because there was continued suspicion by the medical examiner that these deaths were caused by Covid-19, the medical examiner sent autopsy tissue to the CDC for definitive testing," Previously, the first known COVID-19 death in the United States was in Washington state on February 29th. As the person had no "significant travel history," per the county's chief medical officer, the case is presumed to be from community spread. Therefore, it's now believed that COVID-19 was present in California at least by mid-January, and that there are likely many other deaths from February and possibly January due to the virus.
see https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ for more
Coronavirus Update (Live): 2,633,279 Cases and 183,894 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer
APRIL 23:
this past day's COVID-19 stats summary:
Worldwide, there were 85,021 new COVID-19 cases today, and 6,601 deaths. In the US, there were 31,487 new cases today, and 2,325 deaths.
Worldwide cumulative totals are now 2.72 million cases and 190,528 deaths, with 880,204 cases and 49,845 deaths in the US.
ADDENDUM: After worldometers published its daily totals, they announced that they were adding VA data to the US totals. This added 6,273 additional cases and 391 deaths that had not previously been counted. US totals are now 886,442 cases and 50,236 deaths.
Of all of the countries in the world with more than 100 total cases, the country that currently has the highest Case Fatality Rate (CFR) is Belgium, at 15.2% (6,490 deaths out of 42,797 cases).
I've noted the limitations of CFR as a metric previously, as we clearly don't have full counts of either cases or deaths yet; it's widely believed that COVID-19 mortality is well under 1%.
Nonetheless, the case of Belgium was interesting to me. We haven't heard many horror stories from Belgium as the UK (3rd, at 13.6%), Italy (currently 5th, at 13.5%) or Spain (9th at 10.4%), nor is it a political flash point for discussions of countries that haven't locked down such as Sweden (6th at 12.1%) or the Netherlands (7th at 11.7%).
Why is Belgium, of all countries, topping the list?
Turns out, Belgium doesn't do its counting the same way much of the rest of the world does.
Belgium has counted 6,490 deaths due to COVID-19. 3420 of those -- 52.7% -- have been in nursing homes. And, of the nursing home cases, just 185, or 5,4%, were tested for COVID-19. That is, 49.8% of the total deaths listed in the COVID-19 totals for Belgium are presumptive; they would not be counted as COVID-19 in the United States or many other countries.
Per CDC data, the total of COVID-19 deaths as of April 18th was 23,358, based on death certificate data received and coded by the National Center for Health Statistics. That represented about 60% of the cases listed at worldometers as of the 18th. The CDC count for influenza as of the same date was 5,530.
see https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ for more
Coronavirus Update (Live): 2,716,806 Cases and 190,528 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer
APRIL 24:
this past day's COVID-19 stats summary:
Worldwide, there were 105,616 new COVID-19 cases today, and 6,174 deaths. In the US, there were 38,764 new cases today, and 1,951 deaths.
The number of new cases, both in the US and the world, are new one-day records.
Worldwide cumulative totals are now 2.83 million cases and 197,091 deaths, with 925.038 cases and 52,185 deaths in the US.
In yesterday's update I took a look at Belgium's numbers, in particular how Belgium's transparency with its counts is coloring the perception of their response to the crisis.
Today, we see another set example:
In South America, Ecuador has been a hot spot. A major report in The Telegraph on April 8th was titled, "Cardboard coffins and bodies line streets of Ecuador in ominous warning to rest of Latin America." But officially Ecuador had relatively few cases, and not enough deaths to account for all of those caskets.
That changed today, as Ecuador reported 11,536 new cases, more than doubling the official count. Per a Reuters report, the health minister said this resulted from "delayed testing."
Officially, Ecuador now has 576 deaths from COVID-19. However, per the same report. "during the first 15 days of April authorities registered 6,700 deaths in Guayaquil’s surrounding province of Guayas, against an average of 2,000 deaths in January and February." Guyas is home to approximately 3 million out of Ecuador's 17 million people.
Presumably, many more of the 4,700 excess deaths will eventually be attributed to COVID-19, and we can also suppose there are likely thousands more in Ecuador's other provinces.
Not only do these changes now put Ecuador as the #1 hotspot per capita in South America, this also should put a damper on the notion that the virus is killed by warmer weather.
But these cases aren't new today, they were just reported today. The same will be true when the thousands of deaths in Ecuador are inevitably reported.
Tomorrow, I'll take a look at the US new cases totals, and the recent new highs in several states.
see https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ for more
Coronavirus Update (Live): 2,827,391 Cases and 197,003 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer
APRIL 25:
this past day's COVID-19 stats summary:
Worldwide, there were 90,371 new COVID-19 cases today, and 6,069 deaths. In the US, there were 35,419 new cases today, and 2,065 deaths.
Worldwide cumulative totals are now 2.92 million cases and 203,165 deaths, with 960,651 cases and 54,256 deaths in the US.
Over the past two days I highlighted Belgium and Ecuador, including how their data has been reported.
Today, the United States. The totals of new cases have been way up the past few days, including a record 38,958 cases yesterday.
Several states have recorded single day highs for new cases. Illinois has had nearly 5,000 new cases the past 2 days, including a record 2724 yesterday. New York is back over 10,000 new cases today.
The biggest difference?
Testing.
Partly this is delayed results coming in from various labs. But it's also reflective of increased capacity.
Illinois had more than 16,000 test results reported on Friday; it had been under 10,000 before then.
New York had nearly 47,000 tests reported in today's numbers (worldometers reports yesterday's state numbers today, due to when New York publishes its data); before yesterday the state had never reported more than 27,000 results.
For the United States as a whole, the number of reported tests on Wednesday was 137,950. The 3 days since then have averaged 317,965. About 11% of those tests have come back positive. This is a dramatic decrease from the prior 3 days, when about 18% of US tests came back positive. 18% is also the overall rate of positive test results in the US, over the course of the pandemic.
Incrementally, a far smaller percentage of the increased tests are coming back positive. But the net results is thousands of cases being flagged that would have been missed before due to not having been tested at all.
see https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ for more
Coronavirus Update (Live): 2,917,353 Cases and 203,111 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer
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