by James C. Sherlock
I have told readers that I will update the state testing rankings here regularly. In a spreadsheet that I constructed using testing data from the COVID Tracking Project and Bureau of the Census data for population of 50 states and D.C., Virginia ranks 48th in testing per 100,000 citizens as of Monday May 4.
Virginia had tested 1,321 people per 100,000 citizens. Top ranked Rhode Island had tested 6,996 per 100,000. Second ranked New York 5,178. Neighboring Maryland 2,266. Tennessee 3,096. North Carolina 1,396. West Virginia 2,971.
Readers will have their own theories why we continue to lag so badly in testing, but lag we do.
Unfortunately, there is another statistic in which we rank much higher – percent of processed tests returning positive. In that statistic, we rank 14th, at 17.4% positive results. All of the states that have a higher percentage of tests returning positive have tested a far greater percentage of their populations than Virginia.
So one easily can make the case that Virginia is the most under tested of any state in the union given the need for testing demonstrated by our confirmed positive rate. That is really not a hard call.
