Around Central Florida, we have seen more and more testing locations for Coronavirus, in which Governor Ron DeSantis has taken great pride.
“We have increased testing tremendously,” the Governor said in a news conference on Friday. “We’ve done over 225,000 tests, probably by the end of the day we will be about 235,000 completed tests.”
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News 6 took a deeper dive into the numbers and found there is plenty of room for improvement.
"We are kind of neck and neck with California for being number two in the country," DeSantis said.
It is true that Florida is close to California in the total number of tests given.
According to the state of Florida's online dashboard which is updated daily, Florida has given 236,503 tests to date.
There are 21.4 million people in the state, which means one percent of the population has been tested
“Testing has been a crucial part of our strategy, here in the state of Florida to fight COVID-19,” DeSantis said.
News 6 reviewed data from The COVID Tracking Project, a volunteer group that tracks Coronavirus stats from state to state.
When you break down testing per capita, Florida ranks 23rd nationally.
Testing about 1020 tests for every 100,000 people.
By comparison, New York has tested nearly triple that amount, 2,703 tests for every 100,000 people.
And California has done less, about 609 tests for every 100,000 residents.
Experts expect to see a second and third peak of the virus when the community re-opens.
They say testing is key to controlling the spread of the virus.
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