Read on Twitter
1) Last week I started collecting data for the amount of tests IL was doing because I was increasingly alarmed by how slowly the number of total Illinoisans tested was increasing. I used the Wayback Machine to see older data than when I began taking screenshots of the daily data. https://twitter.com/thedailylineIL/status/1246076236222173184
2) Turns out, this amazing website was doing just that for all 50 states ( @COVID19Tracking https://covidtracking.com ). I wanted to compare Illinois with other hot spots (WA, LA) and large states (NY, CA, FL).
3) Of course, New York has become the epicenter of Covid-19 in the U.S. As of yesterday, NY had completed 238,965 tests. They have 92,381 known positive cases and 2,373 deaths.
4) If you compare the ratio of blue (total tested) and red (positive tests) between Illinois and New York, you'll see there's a heck of a lot more positive tests in NY versus Illinois. I don't pretend to know the exact answer for why that is, but it's probably a lot of things...
5) ...like the nature of NYC's population density +the fact that it's the largest outbreak in the US
What about Washington state? Seattle had the first known case and subsequent outbreak in the US. Here's their graph next to IL's. WA has tested 79,418 w 6,585 cases + 262 deaths
What about Washington state? Seattle had the first known case and subsequent outbreak in the US. Here's their graph next to IL's. WA has tested 79,418 w 6,585 cases + 262 deaths
6) Anyway, I mentioned that I started collecting the data because I was alarmed by how slowly the number of tests for IL was increasing. Our first case was detected on Jan 24. (data here is spotty because of the limitations of the WayBack machine; asked IDPH for more data but no)
7) A normal bar graph of the tests wouldn't show the slow rate of increase in the beginning because of the large scale. The best way to show it is this way. Keep in mind, we have ~30 labs across IL working on processing Covid tests, and their turnaround times vary widely.
8) ANYWAY, here's the upshot: Just like every other state in the U.S., we need more testing here in Illinois. From the very beginning, @GovPritzker has blamed the federal gov't for lack of testing. @realDonaldTrump said every person who wanted a test could get one. That's false.
9) It wasn't until March 15 that we surpassed 1,000 people tested in IL. Less than three weeks later, we're at nearly 44K, but it's still not enough. State labs are adding second shifts, and will add a third. @GovPritzker on Sunday said that by April 8, we could do 10K tests/day.
10) Chi-based Abbott Labs has developed a rapid test that can give a positive result in 5 mins & a negative one in 13 mins. Yesterday @IDPH's Dr. Ngozi Ezike said IL had received 15 new machines Thurs. We already had Abbott machines in hospitals/labs statewide that can run tests
11) IL got the first shipment of TESTS for the machines this week. IL is getting the tests directly from Abbott, and not via FEMA. The rapid tests and extra machines promise to significantly increase testing capacity in Illinois. Read about the tests here: https://chicago.suntimes.com/coronavirus/2020/4/2/21206214/rapid-coronavirus-testing-starting-illinois
12) While testing in Illinois seems to be behind other states I compared us with (we're a bit ahead of Louisiana, which is a lot smaller but has an outbreak and far more deaths at 310 vs our 157)...
13) ...IL appears to be doing a lot better than California, which is much larger but only has completed 33,000 tests, according to @COVID19Tracking (59,500 are pending; @IDPH isn't reporting that data).
14) Anyway, like @mjzalewski explains for those non-math folks out there (myself included tbh), we want more blue and less red (and definitely less yellow...it's hard to convey scale here w/o making the charts crazy tall, but every death is a tragedy) https://twitter.com/mjzalewski/status/1246086307169939459?s=20
15) I think that's it. I feel weird even asking right now, but if you're interested in reporting like this, please consider subscribing to @thedailylineIL and @thedailylinechi, where @HeatherCherone and @AlexNitkin are also very committed to detailed policy/political reporting)
16) Special thanks to my friends @LizzyLee103 and @BDMedema, without whose help the charts would not exist because I am actually a one-trick pony with spreadsheets and this was beyond my abilities.
Please keep staying home if you can and if you can't, thank you for your work.
Please keep staying home if you can and if you can't, thank you for your work.
@GK_ferg too!
