Total tests by country
These two charts show the most up-to-date estimates of testing levels that we’ve been able to find. You’ll see that some countries’ data is older than others, meaning that they can’t be directly compared. For instance, the estimate for the province of Guangdong in China has not been updated since 24 February.
The first chart plots the total number of tests against the total number of confirmed cases. The more tests a country has done the higher it is; the more confirmed cases it has, the further it is to the right.
Naturally, since you can only get a positive test if you carry out a test in the first place, countries that have performed more tests will tend to have more confirmed cases. In other words: there is a positive correlation between tests performed and cases confirmed. That doesn’t necessarily mean that countries that have done more tests really have more cases, although in many cases they will.
However, the differences between countries can tell us important things. For instance, we can see that some countries have done more tests per confirmed case. The UK, for example, has done many more tests than other European countries with a similar number of confirmed cases.
The second chart plots the number of tests performed in each country. The most obvious point is that the data shows South Korea has done many more tests than other countries. That means we can expect that in South Korea the number of confirmed cases – positive tests – is closer to the real number of infected people than it is in other countries.
That makes it encouraging to see that the number of daily confirmed cases in South Korea has gone down. South Korea was able to quickly manufacture and use a huge number of tests, showing that it is possible. Testing is crucial, so it is vital that other countries follow South Korea’s lead.
A note about the chart: There are now too many countries in our dataset to show them all at once, so not all countries with available data are shown by default. If you want to see a different country, you can select the option ‘+add country’ to find it.
[NB. We provide two estimates for the US. The estimate labelled “US – CDC samples tested” is from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and refers to the number of tests conducted, not the number of individuals tested. The estimates labeled “United States” correspond to estimates of people tested, according to data gathered by the COVID Tracking Project – these estimates are updated more frequently.]
Tests coducted vs Total Confirmed cases of COVID-19
Total COVID-19 tests performed by country
Source: Our World in Data
No comments:
Post a Comment