Percent Positive Test Rates

Increasingly, national, state and county medical reports are focusing on percent positive test rates.

Five Bay Area counties report daily on their seven-day average percent positive test rate, but Solano County does not.

This information is immediately important, as positive test rates in California and other southwestern states are increasing.

I wrote and asked Dr. Matyas on June 24 to supply information as to Solano County’s “percent positive test rate.”  He replied next day with thanks and wrote, “We are actively working to include these values on our County dashboard.  I hope we can begin to report on them sometime next week.”

That was nearly 2 weeks ago.  This important information needs to be made public immediately.  It will be important that the percent positive rate is tracked over time, and displayed as a 7-day chart, so that trends are visible and easily understood.

For comparison purposes…

Without any data from Solano, it’s impossible to compare as yet, but here are 7-day test positivity rates from California and other locations across the U.S. (as of July 7, Vallejo Times-Herald):

• California 7.5%, 18th among all 50 states
• Arizona 25.3%
• Florida 18.7%
• U.S. national rate was below 5% three weeks ago, now 7.8%
• IMPORTANT: the World Health Organization has said positivity rates should remain at 5% or below for 14 days before beginning to reopen. Currently, only 23 states meet that metric, according to Johns Hopkins University and the COVID Tracking Project.