https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-says-too-much-coronavirus-testing-makes-us-look-bad-2020-5 - https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-says-too-much-coronavirus-testing-makes-us-look-bad-2020-5

https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/post/trump-says-more-testing-makes-us-look-bad-its-availability-remains-concern#stream/0 - https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/post/trump-says-more-testing-makes-us-look-bad-its-availability-remains-concern#stream/0

Too much testing?????

As the pandemic has progressed the Case Fatality Rate in the USA has risen.  This shows that too few tests are being carried out to keep up with the spread of the virus.    With a CFR of over 6 and an estimated Infection Rate of under 1, for every case that has been detected something like 6 other cases have been missed.  

But in this respect of testing USA is doing a much better job than places like the UK where the CFR rate is over 13,  But a much worse job than places like South Korea (CFR 2.4%).   

When I look at [url]https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/[/url] test per million the US is-more or less-at the same level of testing as the UK and Canada-around 30.000 per million.

The NL is doing half of that-just over 15.000 per million-even Turkey is doing better ! Germany has 32.000 test per million-so just slightly better than US, UK, Canada. Spain has over 52.000 tests per million. 

Problem with testing is;

-Not all tests are very good (some give false results close to 50% of the time-worthless !)

-A test is just a snopshot in time-you may test negative but get infected when you leave the testing area. 

Too much infected cases, ICU cases, deaths makes US look bad ! So far NPI have shown the best results, social distancing, masks (and not because a government-you may like or not tells you- but because you do not want to get infected or infect others).

A lot of (western) countries are not doing a good job-not only the US (also Russia is doing bad-half of the cases in Moscow-end of lockdown could see another explosion of cases there as well.)

Josh,  that is a valid point. If the USA is worried about the bad image from the total number of tests, they should start using "tests per million" or "test per 100,000" which could easily give a better comparison with other countries.  

BTW, does any one know why are the figures for Canada so much better than those of the USA?

                  Cases/ million         deaths/million        CFR

Canada         1,818                          126                  6.9

USA               4.023                          242                 6.0

[based on WHO and CDC data for the situation on 11th May 2020]

When you look at [url]https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/[/url] New York (State) has 17,845 cases per million, 1388 per milion-New Jersey 15,890 and 1052-these two states make the US doing very bad in statistics. 

Spain-worst hit in Europe has 5735 cases per million, 572 deaths per million.

If you exclude New York and New Jersey the numbers of the US and Canada will look more similar-eventhough in some US states numbers are still going up. (Mississippi, Minnesota, Nebraska according to Reuters. [url]https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/california/[/url] also not doing that good, [url]https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/canada/[/url] Canada is doing better than California)