Here is our visualization for the population of Iceland and the US. South Korea: How many tests are performed each day? In a separate post we discuss how epidemiological models of COVID-19 help us estimate the true number of infections. In such countries, the true number of infections may be far higher than the number of confirmed cases.
Where the number of confirmed cases is high relative to the extent of testing, this suggests that there may not be enough tests being carried out to properly monitor the outbreak. Looking downward on the chart, we see some countries doing ten or a hundred times fewer tests than other countries with a similar number of new confirmed cases.Ĭonversely, looking to the right, we see some countries find ten or a hundred times more cases than others out a similar number of tests. The chart shows the daily number of tests (vertical axis) against the daily number of new confirmed cases (horizontal axis), both per million people. This scatter chart provides another way of seeing the extent of testing relative to the scale of the outbreak in different countries. In these countries, the number of confirmed cases indicated may represent only a fraction of the total number of cases. In countries that test very little in relation to their outbreak – shown in shades of red in the chart – many cases are likely to go unreported. Those that have a positive rate higher than 3% are shown in shades of orange and red. The countries that have a positive rate below 3% are shown in shades of blue. The WHO has suggested a positive rate lower than 10% – but better is lower than 3% – as a general benchmark of adequate testing. This results in a positive rate around 20% or even higher.Ĭountries that do very few tests per confirmed case are unlikely to be testing widely enough to find all cases. Others, such as Mexico, several South American countries, and Nigeria, only do a handful of tests – five or fewer – for every confirmed case.Some countries, like Australia, South Korea and some European countries, have a positive rate around 1% or lower – they do hundreds, or even thousands of tests for each case they find.We see enormous differences across countries. If you are interested in the development over time you can simply click on the country in the map (or switch to the Chart-tab at the bottom of the visualization). So one important way to understand if countries are testing sufficiently is to ask: What share of the tests confirm a case? What is the positive rate? This is what the map here shows. To be able to properly monitor the spread of the virus, countries with more widespread outbreaks need to do more testing. South Korea: Daily confirmed deaths: how do they compare to other countries?
→ We provide more detail on these three points in our page on Deaths from COVID-19. Since reporting can vary significantly from day to day – irrespectively of any actual variation of deaths – it is helpful to view the seven-day rolling average of the daily figures as we do in the chart here. The death figures on a given date do not necessarily show the number of new deaths on that day, but the deaths reported on that day.How COVID-19 deaths are recorded may differ between countries (e.g., some countries may only count hospital deaths, whilst others also include deaths in homes).The difference between reported confirmed deaths and actual deaths varies by country. The actual death toll from COVID-19 is likely to be higher than the number of confirmed deaths – this is due to limited testing and problems in the attribution of the cause of death.Three points on confirmed death figures to keep in mindĪll three points are true for all currently available international data sources on COVID-19 deaths: This chart shows the number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths per day.
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