“Over the past couple of weeks, the United States has seen significant improvements not just with the raw number of Covid-19 tests but also with other metrics experts use to gauge the scope of the US’s coronavirus outbreak and its testing capacity.
During the week of May 5, the US averaged nearly 300,000 new coronavirus tests a day, according to the Covid Tracking Project. That’s nearly double the roughly 150,000 daily tests performed in early April, although it still falls short of the number of new tests a day experts say is needed to fully control the outbreak — a number that ranges from 500,000 on the low end to tens of millions on the high end, depending on which plan you’re reading.”
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“Over much of April, testing numbers stagnated due to supply shortages for swabs, reagents, and other materials needed to collect samples and run coronavirus tests.
Experts have said that the federal government, led by President Donald Trump, should lead national efforts to boost testing. But Trump’s “blueprint” for testing explicitly leaves the problem to the states and private sector, saying the federal government will only act as a “supplier of last resort.””
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” With overall cases, the country as a whole has seen its daily new reported Covid-19 cases drop in May. But much of that decrease originated in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York — the three states included in the New York City metro area, which suffered the worst outbreak. When those three states are excluded, the US has seen daily new Covid-19 cases at best start to drop only in recent days — far from the two weeks of decreases that experts recommend.”
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“Some of the upward trend in Covid-19 cases outside Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York in recent weeks is likely due to increased testing.”
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“Taken together, these figures suggest that the majority of states are not ready to start to reopen just yet. While America has made decent progress throughout May in confronting the challenge of this pandemic, there’s still a bit more work to be done.”
https://www.vox.com/2020/5/14/21257264/coronavirus-testing-positive-rate-covid-reopen-usa