
Number of specimens tested for SARS-CoV-2 in U.S. - kamaraju
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/testing-in-us.html
======
justinyan
The Atlantic has an effort to break this tracking down on a state-by-state
basis ([https://covidtracking.com/data/](https://covidtracking.com/data/))
which definitely has some interesting nuggets and gives some color on how they
arrive at their numbers on a per-state basis.

~~~
city41
BNO has also done this, in a more concise format:
[https://bnonews.com/index.php/2019/12/tracking-
coronavirus-u...](https://bnonews.com/index.php/2019/12/tracking-coronavirus-
u-s-data/)

They also have good worldwide data:
[https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-
coronavirus...](https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus-
cases/)

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grandmczeb
This page says it includes public health labs, but as far as I know quite a
bit of the US' testing capacity is private labs (at least 30% according to
[1].) Does anyone know if those are included here? And if not, where a good
total count can be found?

[1]
[https://twitter.com/COVID2019tests/status/123923123482549043...](https://twitter.com/COVID2019tests/status/1239231234825490437?s=20)

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philshem
Don't be dismayed by html tables...

    
    
        import pandas as pd
        df = pd.read_html('https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/testing-in-us.html')
    
        print(df[0])
    

requires

    
    
        pip install pandas html5lib lxml

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dboreham
See also:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22567004](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22567004)

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forkexec
IIRC, this doesn't count states' numbers, this only the CDC's numbers.

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avip
I don't think number of tests is of much interest currently - it's not very
important, in terms of required action, if US has 10k or 100k infected.

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zamadatix
It tells you if you need 10x as many people under hospital care at the peak or
not.

~~~
avip
No. It tells you if you'll have 10mm in 30d or 20d.

(assuming business as usual)

~~~
zamadatix
It doesn't matter if 10mm is in 30 days or 20 days it matters if when you hit
10mm you expect to need 10x as many beds or not which you can tell by taking
used beds/actively infected people. In use beds is easy to gather but if we
can't accurately gather infected people we have no way to accurately predict
if we have enough beds for the given expected peak.

The peak can be moved and lowered if needed but it comes at great cost so
nobody will want to do it without data.

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ajross
At this point it seems like the CDC has just capitulated and stopped trying,
figuring that the private labs will pick up the slack. There are real,
technical details to debate (e.g. the manufacturing error on their first test
kit), but at this point it's simple misadministration.

If there was ever a clear case for the "You had one job." meme, this is it.
Epidemic and pandemic response is the reason the Center for Disease Control
exists at all. And they... they didn't.

~~~
bloopernova
Unfortunately the CDC's existence, purpose, and funding is controlled by the
government. Thus any discussion of their actions becomes embroiled in the
political tribalism that dominates comments.

The staunch defenders of the current administration are often successful at
shutting down criticism of their leader and their party's actions. Which is
doing this country a huge disservice because right now we need to be _fixing_
these issues, not continually arguing about blame.

