April 10, 2020

COVID-19 Testing Is Finally Going Well in the US

Compared to other countries, how are we doing with COVID-19 testing? Pretty well:

Up through mid-March our testing rate was terrible, but by early April it had picked up and has been rising steadily ever since. As of today, it’s better than nearly every European country except Italy and Switzerland.

It’s worth noting that testing data is notoriously variable, so this is more a ballpark estimate than a solid report. Also, data is not available for every country. France, for example, has data only through early March, and Germany has no data at all.¹ Still, this chart has some value. We’ll need to up our testing game before we can reopen the economy, but we’re starting from a pretty good baseline.

¹At least, no data that’s reliable enough for the Our World in Data folks to report. Other estimates have put the German testing rate at around 0.6 per thousand, slightly higher than the US number.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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