Why does Connexion not post number of Covid tests in France?

Reader question: Why does The Connexion and other media post up the number of positive cases but not also the number of tests carried out?

For the past few months, The Connexion has been posting daily figures about the Covid-19 epidemic in France.

We do this to give our readers reliable information, without them having to search through official government websites.

We started out offering four stats: recorded new cases, new deaths, total deaths and rate of positive tests.

Recently, we have also added stats about the Covid-19 vaccination campaign, including the total number of people vaccinated in France and how many are vaccinated each day.

The reason that we do not post up the total number of tests carried out each day is that we have chosen instead to post up the 'rate of positive tests'. This shows the number of positive tests divided by the total number of tests over the past seven days.

We feel that this number more clearly and succinctly shows how many people are testing positive for the virus than if we posted the total number of daily tests and the total number of positive results.

For example, on January 12, France recorded 19,753 new cases of Covid-19. This number is 6.5% of the total number of tests carried out.

Looking at this percentage is a good way of gauging how widespread the epidemic is. In October, when infection rates were high in France, this number climbed to around 15%. Pre-Christmas, it was down to around 3%.

The rate of positive tests is also the statistic offered daily by Santé Publique France on its page of key numbers relating to the pandemic.

There are many different statistics that we could provide but we have chosen the ones that we feel best shows details of the epidemic in France.

In our articles on the subject of Covid-19 we often go into more depth with these numbers, offering statistics on the number of hospitalisations, the rate of bed occupancy in intensive care wards, etc.

Read more:

Coronavirus: Daily updates on the situation in France

Covid-19 vaccine in France: Your questions answered