Why aren't our total cases in a faster decline?
Answer: Because we are doing more testing.
Remember, if you do a lot more testing you will find more cases, but that does not mean that there actually are more cases out there. The proper metric is positivity percentage (the percentage of tests that come up positive). If I do 200 tests and find 100 people have the virus, vs is I do 1,000,000 tests and find 100 people have the virus I will still have 100 total cases, but obviously the former is a much more serious situation. CDC data shows the positivity % is falling sharply! (see the black lines)
Just because you saw a large upswing in cases in March did not mean our actual cases increased rapidly in March.... it means that we began detecting a virus that was already here and according to data has been in the US since DECEMBER.
No matter what state you are in, this is the metric you should use to measure the growth of the spread. Total cases is a terrible metric unless it is adjusted for total number of tests done.
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