{"id":4672,"date":"2020-11-17T13:52:09","date_gmt":"2020-11-17T18:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/?p=4672"},"modified":"2020-11-17T23:13:41","modified_gmt":"2020-11-18T04:13:41","slug":"covid-testing-capacity-a-comparative-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/covid-testing-capacity-a-comparative-analysis\/","title":{"rendered":"Comprehending COVID-19: Exploring Testing Capacity\u2019s Confounding Influence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-ogntq\" style=\"border: none\" src=\"https:\/\/datawrapper.dwcdn.net\/ogntq\/1\/\" width=\"600\" height=\"515\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-ehd0R\" style=\"border: none\" src=\"https:\/\/datawrapper.dwcdn.net\/ehd0R\/3\/\" width=\"600\" height=\"572\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Description:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For this assignment, I thought it would be interesting to investigate each state\u2019s COVID testing capacity to try to gauge its confounding influence on current understandings of the distribution of coronavirus cases within the United States. The data for my visualization was obtained through the data set provided below, which was created as part of the COVID project. As you can see, the original creators decided to list the states, which I thought limited the audience\u2019s interpretation when it comes to comparing larger regional and inter-state discrepancies. While most discourse and data pertaining to COVID-19 is centered around the number of cases, the impact of testing is often overlooked. As such, I thought it would be valuable to map out the differences to visually assess the landscape and identify any patterns, as it lends insight into the accuracy of each state\u2019s confirmed case rate.<\/p>\n<p>After completing the first graphic, I then similarly mapped out each state\u2019s confirmed case rate to cross reference between the two visualizations.\u00a0This yielded a few key observations. Of these, I personally found Oregon\u2019s extremely low testing capacity and low confirmed case rate to be the most noteworthy, as I have always considered them ahead of the curve in terms of listening to the science and making data-driven decisions (marijuana legalization, drug decriminalization, etc). This has really made me question what is driving this trend &#8211; why is their testing capacity so low? Is it a lack of state or federal funding? Pennsylvania also really stood out to me because it had the lowest testing capacity (0.2154%), but still had a relatively high confirmed case rate (0.6019%), which indicates that the pandemic has probably hit that much area worse in reality. Texas and Florida also reflected this dynamic, although I wasn\u2019t necessarily shocked due to the press coverage these states have received in recent months. Lastly, I was surprisingly impressed by Alaska\u2019s response to the pandemic. Despite being a Red state, Alaska appears to have been able to capitalize on their geographic isolation and low population density, as they not only have the highest testing capacity (1.15%), but also the second lowest confirmed case rate behind Hawaii.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Original Data Visualization:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/221\/2020\/11\/testing-data-130x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"130\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-4734\" srcset=\"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/221\/2020\/11\/testing-data-130x300.jpg 130w, https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/221\/2020\/11\/testing-data.jpg 313w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 130px) 100vw, 130px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Description: For this assignment, I thought it would be interesting to investigate each state\u2019s COVID testing capacity to try to gauge its confounding influence on current understandings of the distribution of coronavirus cases within the United States. The data for my visualization was obtained through the data set provided below, which was created as part [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2772,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-data"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2772"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4672"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4735,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4672\/revisions\/4735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}