North Dakota’s Daily Rate of Positive Tests Is Rising
MINOT, N.D. — We’re all watching the numbers related to the coronavirus outbreak, tracking the daily total of new positive tests and, more grimly, if there were any deaths.
Today, North Dakota hit a new daily high in positive tests with 28, but even as that number makes headlines, we need to remember that the number of positives in any given reporting period is a product of the number of tests we conduct.
We can only measure the scope of the outbreak within the window of tests conducted.
With that in mind, a much more useful metric than the total number of positive tests in any given day is the rate of positive tests in the context of the total number of tests conducted.
I’ve been tracking that on a chart (which I’ve shared before) and I think it gives us one of the most accurate measures of what we all want to know.
