Trump...US's coronavirus case surge due to increased testing...new analysis shows: Wrong

[Nevilledog]

Trump claims the US's coronavirus case surge is due to increased testing. A new analysis shows why he's wrong.

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-testing-not-responsible-for-rising-us-case-counts-2020-7

The counter-narrative began almost instantly. After the US count of COVID-19 cases began an inexorable rise in June, the White House sought to assure Americans that the increase was, basically, an illusion, created by an increase in testing for the novel coronavirus.

In a June 15 tweet, President Donald Trump said testing "makes us look bad." At his campaign rally in Tulsa five days later, he said he had asked his "people" to "slow the testing down, please." At a White House press conference last week, he told reporters, "When you test, you create cases."

And in an interview with Fox News that aired Sunday, Trump could not have been clearer: "Cases are up because we have the best testing in the world and we have the most testing." Basically, the president was arguing that the US had just as many new cases in June and July as it did in May but, with fewer tests being done in May, they weren't being detected; with more testing now, they are.

A new STAT analysis of testing data for all 50 states and the District of Columbia, however, shows with simple-to-understand numbers why Trump's claim is wrong. In only seven states was the rise in reported cases from mid-May to mid-July driven primarily by increased testing. In the other 26 states — among the 33 that saw cases increase during that period — the case count rose because there was actually more disease.

*snip*

[underpants]

1. Dropped. The. Ball.

Plain and simple

[ProfessorGAC]

2. Sort Of The Point Of Reporting Positivity

If that number goes up, there's more disease, unless there's a significant drop in testing, based on narrowing the scope.
And, positivity has been reported the whole time.
It's a percentage. It's dimensionless. It's a direct reflection of depth of spread.
As I said, a major narrowing (testing only symptomatic people) would do it too, so there are extrinsic influences. But, nobody is dramatically reducing testing. That's why PINO is whining.