The US has carried out 4.

69 million tests in total, according to data

from the COVID Tracking Project via Johns Hopkins
University (JHU). That's a far cry from the Rockefeller
Foundation's recommendation, which suggests having a capacity for 3
million a week within the next two months. In its plan, to which
prominent experts contributed, the foundation says the country should
expand that capacity to 30 million a week over the next six months.
Another plan, by Harvard University's Edmond J. Safra Center for
Ethics, published on Monday, suggests the country will need to deliver
at least 5 million tests a day by early June to begin reopening, and as
many as 20 million a day to fully remobilize the economy, ideally by
late July.

US misses testing benchmark (but so does the UK)

The way some leaders talk about the level of testing can be confusing.
President Trump had claimed that the US had carried out the most
tests in the world, and while that may be true, per capita, it's not
leading.

Trump disagrees with Fauci on US testing capacity

While it's useful to look at how widely a country is testing per capita,
the WHO says there is a better benchmark to measure whether a
country is testing adequately. Dr. Mike Ryan, Executive Director of the
WHO's Health Emergencies Programs, said recently that a good
benchmark is to have at least 10 negative cases for every one positive
case confirmed. That means if a state or country carries out testing
and comes back with positive cases of around 9% or under, then it's
likely that it is testing well.
The US has a positive result rate of 18.8%, going by the COVID
Tracking Project's figures cited by JHU.
Such high rates suggest a country is only testing the worst cases,
usually people who are severely ill and in hospital, Harris said.
It's the same picture in individual US states. Georgia has carried out
around 101,000 tests, with a positive result rate of 21.6%, even further
away from the WHO benchmark.
Elsewhere, several European countries are also lagging far behind in
testing and will need to catch up to safely reopen their societies.
The UK stands out, with just over 610,000 tests carried out and a
positive case rate of 23.4%, worse than Georgia.
The difference is, the UK government has extended its social
restrictions. But it is looking at when and how to lift its lockdown.
The UK government has set a goal of performing 100,000 tests a day
by the end of the month, and while it insists it's on track, it was only
able to carry out around 28,500 on Thursday, raising speculation that it
will fail to meet its target.
France and Sweden are also performing tests below the WHO
benchmark.

Germany lifts lockdown with caution

Germany makes a good case for comparison with the US. It too has
begun easing its lockdown, and it too leaves much of the decision-
making to individual states. Yet its approach is far more rigorous than
what we're seeing in Georgia, and Germany's states are showing a
uniform sense of caution.