Analysis: Most states short on testing
Openings move ahead even if criteria not met
WASHINGTON — As businesses reopened Friday in more of the U.S., an overwhelming majority of states still fall short of the COVID-19 testing levels that public health experts say are necessary to safely ease lockdowns and avoid another deadly wave of outbreaks, according to an Associated Press analysis.
Rapid, widespread testing is considered essential to tracking and containing the coronavirus.
But 41 of the nation’s 50 states fail to test widely enough to drive their infections below a key benchmark, according to an AP analysis of metrics developed by Harvard’s Global Health Institute.
Most governors are moving ahead with unlocking their states, even in cases where they are not meeting broad guidelines recommended by the White House.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has set a goal of 30,000 tests per day as his state launched one of the nation’s most aggressive reopenings on May 1. He never set a firm date on when the state would hit the 30,000 mark, but for most of May, the daily testing numbers have fallen well short of that.
The first stage of Maryland’s reopening began Friday evening, when some retail stores were allowed to reopen and a stay-at-home order was lifted. But some of the hardest-hit parts of the state, including the suburbs of Washington, D.C., extended restrictions for residents and businesses.
Researchers at Harvard University have calculated that the U.S. needs to test a minimum of 900,000 people per day to safely reopen the economy, based on the 10 percent positivity rate and several other key metrics. That goal is nearly three times the country’s current daily testing tally of about 360,000, according to figures compiled by the COVID Tracking Project website.
In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo will allow many smaller cities and rural regions of upstate New York to gradually reopen first, industry by industry, in areas that have been spared the brunt of the coronavirus outbreak.
The first wave of businesses includes retail — though only for curbside or in-store pickup — along with construction and manufacturing. Cuomo also announced that beaches would be allowed to open in time for the Memorial Day weekend.
North Carolina is among the states that have made progress on testing, reporting on Friday an all-time high of more than 12,000 additional tests completed compared with the previous day. But the state’s seven-day rolling average of just over 6,000 tests is still well below the 11,000 daily tests recommended by the Harvard team.
Volume of testing isn’t the only concern. The Food and Drug Administration said late Thursday that it was investigating preliminary data that suggested a rapid COVID-19 test used daily to test Trump and key members of his staff can miss infections.
In other developments:
A Navy hospital ship that came to the Port of Los Angeles to help the region during the coronavirus crisis has departed. Tugs pulled the Mercy away from its dock shortly after 7 a.m. Friday.
Five sailors on the U.S. aircraft carrier sidelined in Guam due to a COVID-19 outbreak have tested positive for the virus for the second time and have been taken off the ship, according to the Navy.
Residents of the Navajo Nation will be under the strictest weekend lockdown yet. Grocery stores, gas stations and other businesses will be closed starting Friday night. Essential workers also are being told to stay home until Monday around dawn.
The New York Police Department, criticized over instances of harsh social distancing enforcement, will no longer be involved in breaking up small clusters of people or confronting citizens about failing to wear a mask, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Friday.