So some good news on testing. Thread.

It appears that we have finally started making progress.

Thank goodness.

For about 3 weeks, we were stuck at 150K tests/day. This was woefully inadequate.

Yet everyday we heard from leaders that we were doing enough. We weren't.

1/n

On 4/22, there was a huge spike. But it was just backlog getting cleared from California. False hope I thought.

But since then, each day, we've seen higher numbers.

It now feels like it wasn't a fluke

Thursday 4/23: 193K
Friday 4/24: 223K
Saturday 4/25: 300K!
Sunday 4/26: 256K

When you look across state, lots of states are up, from NY to CA to Michigan and FL. And small states too.

And the % positive -- a key metric to track under-testing, has been getting better!

4/21 -- 17.9%
4/24 -- 14.1%
4/26 -- 10.7%!!

3/5

A lot has gone into these improvements. States have worked hard to procure supplies, get more labs online

@cmsgov helped by raising reimbursement though suspect too soon to see that effect

States have been leading, but Feds finally helping too (so I hear from states)

4/6

Reality check of course is that this is still nowhere near enough.

We've estimated US needs 500K+ tests per day if we are to have a shot at keeping our economy open.

Others, like @paulmromer and @RockefellerFdn think its tens of millions per day

5/6

Recap:

Testing was stuck forever. Now finally starting to break loose!

4 day-trend gives me hope we may be making progress

We still have a long way to go. But progress!

If we can ramp up testing a bunch more, we can more safely ease distancing restrictions.

Fin