New York State COVID-19 Testing Data by County, March 2020 to September 2023

Daily COVID-19 testing data for New York State, archived as of September 1, 2023. The dataset includes county-level counts of new positives, total tests performed, and test percent positivity, beginning March 1, 2020. Data was reported to the New York State Department of Health via the Electronic Clinical Laboratory Reporting System (ECLRS) and includes pooled testing from higher education institutions.

Use Cases

• Modeling county-level test percent positivity trends over time using Test Date, County, and Test % Positive.
• Analyzing the relationship between total testing volume and new case counts using Total Number of Tests Performed and New Positives.
• Tracking cumulative COVID-19 burden by county using Cumulative Number of Positives and Cumulative Number of Tests Performed.
• Assessing geographic disparities in testing and case rates using County and Geography columns alongside test result metrics.

Strengths

• Data collection is mandated by the New York State Sanitary Code, ensuring systematic reporting.
• Includes detailed methodological notes on data collection changes, such as the November 14, 2020 cutoff and the April 2022 shift to PCR-only percent positivity.
• Covers a significant time period from the first identified case in the state in March 2020 through September 2023.

Limitations

• Last updated 2023-09-01 16:19:43; freshness should be verified.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Changes in federal reporting requirements (HHS) in April 2022 affect the consistency of total test counts and percent positivity calculations over time.

Provenance

Source

New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH), via health.data.ny.gov.

Collection Method

Clinical laboratories electronically reported test results via the Electronic Clinical Laboratory Reporting System (ECLRS), with monitoring by the Bureau of Surveillance and Data System.

Time Range

March 1, 2020 to September 1, 2023.

Freshness

Archived; no longer updated as of September 1, 2023.

Geography

New York State, United States, with data assigned to counties.