COVID-19 positive test rates vary greatly among Southern states. Here’s how they rank
Public health experts and political officials monitor a slew of data to gauge the scope of the coronavirus pandemic in their region — perhaps none more closely than the percent of positive test results.
The percent positive measures “the percentage of all coronavirus tests performed that are actually positive,” according to the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Unlike the number of new daily COVID-19 cases or total case counts, the percent positive indicates when the number of positive tests are too high as well as when the number of total tests are too low.
“The percent positive is a critical measure because it gives us an indication how widespread infection is in the area where the testing is occurring — and whether levels of testing are keeping up with levels of disease transmission,” according to Johns Hopkins.
Before states reopen, the World Health Organization advises the percent positive rate be 5% or lower for at least two weeks.
Matthew Fox, professor of epidemiology and global health at Boston University, told ProPublica a higher positivity rate is indicative of only sick people getting tested, leaving out more mild or asymptomatic cases.
States where the positivity rate is higher than 10% suggest “we’re probably missing a fair number of cases, and you’re not doing enough testing to see what’s going on,” he said.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest dividing the number of positive tests by the total number of reported tests, then multiplying by 100, to calculate the percent positive.
States across the South saw an influx of new cases at the peak of summer, stalling reopening efforts for some just as students were preparing to return for the fall semester. But their percent of positive test results have fluctuated greatly.
The percent of positive test results in North Carolina, for example, has hovered at 5%, while Mississippi’s is nearly three times higher.
Here’s how each state in the South ranks from lowest percent positive to highest.
1. Louisiana
According to the Louisiana Department of Health, the state’s percent positive rate was 5.07% as of Sept. 11, the latest day data is available.
2. North Carolina
The percentage of positive COVID-19 test results has lingered around 5% in North Carolina for nearly a week, The News & Observer reported.
It was 4.8% on Saturday, according to the N&O, but climbed to 5.8% as of Monday — the most recent day of available data.
“I think we are happy to see that our percent of tests that are positive has been trending down, meaning that we think we’re doing a fair amount of testing and not as many are coming back positive and that’s a good thing,” Dr. Mandy Cohen, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, said Tuesday.
North Carolina is also one of just a few states in the South where the number of new cases are “lower and staying lower,” according to New York Times data. They also include Florida, Louisiana and Virginia.
“North Carolinians are wearing masks and practicing social distancing and it’s helping our state stand out from the rest of the South,” Cohen said, WSOC reported.
3. Virginia
Virginia’s seven-day positivity rate is 6.7% as of Thursday, according to the Virginia Department of Health’s COVID-19 dashboard.
4. Texas
Texas recently changed the way it calculates the percent positive after critics accused officials of misrepresenting the metric by “mixing old data with new,” The Texas Tribune reported.
The percent positive rate is 7.83% for cases reported as of Sept. 15, the most recent day data is available, according to the Texas Department of Health and Human Services.
5. Alabama
Alabama’s percentage of positive tests was 7.9% as of Sept. 12, the latest day data is available, according to Alabama Department of Public Health’s COVID-19 Data and Surveillance Dashboard.
6. Tennessee
The percent of positive coronavirus tests in Tennessee was 8.21% as of Thursday, according to the Tennessee Department of Health.
7. Georgia
The Georgia Department of Health reported a percent positivity rate of 10.3% as of Sept. 16, the most recent day data was available.
While the state has seen a consistent decline in some key metrics and is a better place than it was over the summer, the Macon Telegraph reported it’s “still not a good place.”
Georgia’s testing rate is still behind, with public health officials saying the state is only performing a third of the necessary tests.
“I don’t know of a single person in public health who would characterize our public health response as successful,” Dr. Amber Schmidtke, a public health microbiologist and a member of a state coronavirus data task force, told the Telegraph.
8. Florida
The Miami Herald reports Florida’s seven-day average positivity rate was roughly 13% as of Sept. 16.
According to the Florida Department of Health’s COVID-19 Data and Surveillance dashboard, that figure is currently at 13.44%.
9. South Carolina
South Carolina’s Department of Health and Environmental Control reported a positive test rate of 13.5% on Wednesday, down from 15.7% on Tuesday, according to McClatchy News.
10. Mississippi
The seven-day moving average of positive tests in Mississippi is 14.8% as of Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins’ data.
