Data
Daily COVID-19 tests per 1,000 people
What you should know about this indicator
- Testing is a key tool for identifying infections, guiding treatment, isolating positive cases, tracing contacts, and allocating healthcare resources.
- The number of COVID-19 tests is not measured uniformly across countries: some track 'tests performed', while others count 'people tested'.
- Most reported data includes PCR and antigen tests; antibody tests are generally excluded since they are less relevant for current infection tracking.
- At-home self-tests may be counted if reported nationally, but many countries still rely primarily on laboratory tests for confirmation.
- Varying reporting standards and test definitions can complicate international comparisons and the interpretation of testing statistics.
Daily COVID-19 tests per 1,000 people
New tests for COVID-19 (7-day smoothed). For countries that don't report testing data on a daily basis, we assume that testing changed equally on a daily basis over any periods in which no data was reported. This produces a complete series of daily figures, which is then averaged over a rolling 7-day window.
Source
Official data collated by Our World in Data (2022) – with major processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
August 9, 2024
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Sources and processing
This data is based on the following sources
How we process data at Our World in Data
All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.
At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.
Notes on our processing step for this indicator
Comparisons across countries are affected by differences in testing policies and reporting methods.
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Citations
How to cite this page
To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:
“Data Page: Daily COVID-19 tests per 1,000 people”, part of the following publication: Edouard Mathieu, Hannah Ritchie, Lucas Rodés-Guirao, Cameron Appel, Daniel Gavrilov, Charlie Giattino, Joe Hasell, Bobbie Macdonald, Saloni Dattani, Diana Beltekian, Esteban Ortiz-Ospina, and Max Roser (2020) - “COVID-19 Pandemic”. Data adapted from Official data collated by Our World in Data. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-tests-per-thousand-people-smoothed-7-day [online resource]How to cite this data
In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:
Official data collated by Our World in Data (2022) – with major processing by Our World in DataFull citation
Official data collated by Our World in Data (2022) – with major processing by Our World in Data. “Daily COVID-19 tests per 1,000 people” [dataset]. Official data collated by Our World in Data, “COVID-19, testing” [original data]. Retrieved April 17, 2025 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-tests-per-thousand-people-smoothed-7-day