How Virginia Juked Its COVID-19 Statistics
The state is combining results from viral and antibody tests in the same statistic. This threatens to confound America’s understanding of the pandemic.
By Alexis C. Madrigal and Robinson Meyer
The United States’ ability to test for the novel coronavirus finally seems to be improving. As recently as late April, the country rarely reported more than 150,000 new test results each day. The U.S. now routinely claims to conduct more than 300,000 tests a day, according to state-level data compiled by the COVID Tracking Project at The Atlantic.
But these rosy numbers may conceal a problem: A lack of federal guidelines has created huge variation in how states are reporting their COVID-19 data and in what kind of data they provide to the public.
These gaps can be used for political advantage. In at least one state, Virginia, senior officials are blending the results of two different types of coronavirus test in order to report a more favorable result to the public. This harms the integrity of the data they use to make decisions, reassure residents, and justify reopening their economies.
Other differences make it hard to track the pandemic. In at least three other states, officials…
