Meet the #COVID19 equivalent of ACA Signups: COVIDTracking.com

A few days ago, in light of HHS Secretary Alex Azar admitting that neither he nor anyone else at the HHS Dept. appears to have the slightest idea about how many Americans have actually been tested for coronavirus, I kiddingly mused:

Maybe I should register CoronaTestCount.net and start up an amateur spreadsheet to track this by state for the HHS Dept...hmmmm...

I was kidding, however, because my own plate is simply too full to take on that task as well.

Fortunately, I don't have to, because someone else has already stepped up to do exactly that. Via Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo:

This seems to be the best and really only source of information I’ve seen with detailed and frequently updated data on the rate of COVID-19 testing and infections broken down by states within the United States. This is the breakdown by states. This is the daily cumulative update. In each case you have total tests, positives, negatives and pending. In a better world, the CDC or some other government agency would be publishing this information. But that’s not happening.

A few more points about why this is a reliable source.

Everything is moving quickly. I’m not involved with this project. So I can’t vouch for it directly. But I’ve looked at it closely. It’s run by serious, named people. The project combines one started by Jeff Hammerbacher, a data person from the biotech field, and another started by Alexis Madrigal of The Atlantic. They’re both now working together on the joint project. It’s being updated regularly. They’ve published a brief discussion of methodology along with links to state and county sources of information where most of the information is drawn from. There are also helpful notes in a comments field on sources of data and what different states are or are not reporting. (They’re actually looking for volunteers to work on the project.)

So there you have it: What ACASignups.net is to ACA-compliant individual market enrollments, the "Coronavirus Numbers by State" project is to COVID-19 testing and infections. Thank you to Jeff Hammerbacher and Alexis Madrigal. A direct link to the spreadsheet can be found at COVIDTracking.com, or you can follow the Twitter feed at @COVID19Tracking.

As of this writing (Noon on Wednesday, March 11th), COVIDTracking.com lists the total cases in the U.S. as: