Coronavirus tests are the best way to contain the pandemic
Testing for Covid-19 is not only important for diagnosing individuals, but also helps governments coordinate where medical facilities are needed most urgently and helps make informed decisions on appropriate restrictions and social distancing measures.
The United States is now at the epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic having confirmed more than 1.3 million cases and 80,000 deaths. The country has carried out over 10 million tests, the highest total of anywhere in the world. With a population of 328.2 million this means approximately 30 in every thousand people have been tested nationwide.
How does the US compare with
the rest of the world?
Each American state sets its own Covid-19 testing programme. Here we calculate the ratio per thousand citizens to explore how efficiently each state tests for the coronavirus compared to the rest of the world. The following numbers include negative and pending results as of May 10.
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(Northeastern states detailed below)
Total tested:
Test per 1,000 population:
Most individual US states rank higher than entire countries according to the number of tests per thousand of the population. Consequently, some countries are used as a yardstick several times on the map.
NORTHEAST
Total tested:
Tests per thousand people:
| State | Country name | Tests per thousand people | Total tested |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maine | Turkey | 17 | 23,528 |
| New Hampshire | Greenland | 24 | 33,453 |
| Vermont | Germany | 32 | 20,048 |
| New York | Cyprus | 61 | 1,182,998 |
| Massachusetts | Denmark | 56 | 388,389 |
| Connecticut | Norway | 36 | 130,192 |
| Rhode Island | Luxembourg | 86 | 1,059,361 |
| Pensylvania | Hong Kong | 22 | 284,383 |
| New Jersey | Austria | 35 | 312,447 |
| Delaware | Singapore | 32 | 31,039 |
| Virginia | Turkey | 17 | 143,055 |
| Maryland | Belarus | 26 | 159,931 |
| Washington DC | Belgium | 42 | 29,570 |
WEST COAST
| State | Country name | Tests per thousand people | Total tested |
|---|---|---|---|
| Washington | Australia | 32 | 242,989 |
| Oregon | New Caledonia | 18 | 75,507 |
| Idaho | Aruba | 18 | 32,142 |
| Montana | France | 20 | 21,704 |
| California | Belarus | 24 | 955,664 |
| Nevada | Azerbaijan | 19 | 58,809 |
| Wyoming | Slovakia | 21 | 12,064 |
| Utah | Qatar | 46 | 146,510 |
| Colorado | Djibouti | 17 | 100,610 |
| Arizona | Serbia | 19 | 137,739 |
| New Mexico | Kuwait | 46 | 97,053 |
| Hawaii | U.S. | 26 | 37,270 |
| Alaska | Russia | 37 | 27,364 |
CENTRAL US
| State | Country name | Tests per thousand people | Total tested |
|---|---|---|---|
| North Dakota | Mauritius | 59 | 44,869 |
| Minnesota | Slovakia | 20 | 111,88 |
| South Dakota | Czech Republic | 27 | 23,894 |
| Wisconsin | Romania | 13 | 115,382 |
| Michigan | Canada | 29 | 285,678 |
| Nebraska | Liechtenstein | 23 | 45,569 |
| Iowa | Maldives | 23 | 74,174 |
| Illinois | Switzerland | 34 | 429,984 |
| Indiana | Kazakhstan | 21 | 114,029 |
| Kansas | Venezuela | 18 | 52,505 |
| Missouri | New Caledonia | 19 | 115,546 |
| Kentucky | Reunion | 19 | 86,923 |
| Oklahoma | Greenland | 24 | 95,968 |
| Arkansas | Finland | 22 | 65,528 |
| Tennessee | Latvia | 38 | 261,869 |
| Texas | Aruba | 17 | 501,776 |
| Louisiana | Estonia | 46 | 215,872 |
| Mississippi | Canada | 27 | 81,602 |
| Alabama | Belarus | 26 | 127,421 |
| Puerto Rico | Bangladesh | 0.7 | 2,198 |
EAST COAST
| State | Country name | Tests per thousand people | Total tested |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maine | Turkey | 17 | 23,528 |
| New York | Cyprus | 61 | 1,182,998 |
| Pennsylvania | Hong Kong | 22 | 284,383 |
| Ohio | Peru | 17 | 204,862 |
| West Virginia | Austria | 35 | 62,644 |
| Virginia | Turkey | 17 | 143,055 |
| North Carolina | Azerbaijan | 18 | 192,135 |
| South Carolina | Czech Republic | 27 | 23,894 |
| Georgia | Greenland | 23 | 243,537 |
| Florida | Britain | 25 | 538,948 |
The website “Our World in Data” gathers all the available data of people tested worldwide. Some countries have catalogued the testing process in detail while others do not provide up-to-date, or universally consistent information. For the purpose of these graphics we only include those countries which provide the most detailed data. It should also be noted that most countries only began conducting mass tests in early March.
Tests per thousand people
The following graph present a cross-section of countries ranging from virus-ravaged to the relatively unscathed. To be sure, testing entire populations is unfeasible, but countries that have not tested extensively have unreliable death counts because they are likely to have misdiagnosed the cause of many deaths.
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| ITALY | |
|---|---|
| Tested per thousands | |
| Total tested | 2,514,234 |
| Total infected | 219,070 |
| Total deaths | 30,560 |
Graphic and content editor Darren Long.
Additional web development by Pablo Robles and Dennis Wong.
Source: ourworldindata.org, The COVID Tracking Project, Johns Hopkins University, worldometers.info
