For the 1/100th time, the reason we show so many Cases, compared to other countries that haven’t done nearly as well as we have, is that our TESTING is much bigger and better. We have tested 40,000,000 people. If we did 20,000,000 instead, Cases would be half, etc. NOT REPORTED!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9, 2020
I don’t know any Conservatives, but some of my friends do, and this is the talking point I see most often from covidiots: The US has more cases because we do more testing.
That is completely false. This isn’t even a situation where there’s a kernel of truth that the Trump Administration has skewed or misrepresented. “The US does more testing” is easy to disprove — and quickly! — so here are a few resources to give those people (who won’t believe you anyway because facts mean nothing to them, but at least you can provide the information and move on).
These are the 10 most affected countries.
For awhile, we were comparing ourselves to Europe to show how well the EU flattened the curve while the situation in the US is spiraling out of control. Europe is done with COVID-19. None of them are in the Top 10 anymore (save for Russia) and there’s no reason to compare the United States to the best. We can now compare ourselves to the worst.
These are the countries doing the most tests (numbers are per million people).
That’s it. No deep analysis of the numbers to be had. The only countries in the top ten of testing that are also in the top 10 of new cases are the US and Russia. If new cases was a result of new tests, those top 10 lists would look the same.
More Americans are testing positive than Russians.
(ourworldindata lets you play around with what countries you want to see in case you’re curious about other regions)
Because Russia and the US are the only two countries that are in the top ten for testing and new cases, I wanted to see which country had a higher percentage of positive tests. Russia is at 2.3% and the US is at 7.6%. In the only comparable head to head matchup — a country with a lot of new cases who is also doing a lot of testing — the US is losing.
I think it’s important to note that back in April, our numbers were largely due to NYC, where half of the cases in the US were located. The resulting drop was also largely due to NYC — because we had so many cases, when we got the situation under control here, the trend for the entire country went down. The US (with the exception of the northeast and parts of the northwest and California) never flattened anything.
I looked at the rate of infection again with both top 20 lists — most cases and most testing — to see where the highest rates of infection are. Admittedly, the US isn’t doing as badly as I thought. However, look whose line is trending upward while the other countries performing the most tests are controlling the spread.
The US has moved in the right direction.
Donald Trump has been saying the US does more testing than anybody for the past two months. Luxembourg has done almost four times as many test per capita (but as you may remember, there are many per capitas according to Trump). If you look at new tests recently, the US has continued an upward trend and we’re almost ahead of Russia on a daily basis. But we are nowhere near Luxembourg so Trump will never be able to factually say we do more testing than anybody.
New York has a lot of tests and few cases.
I’ll leave y’all with one more graph to disprove the “more tests equals more cases” lie being drilled into the Fox News audience. This is New York, the original epicenter.
When someone says more tests mean more positive results, ask them to explain New York.
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