Austin Public Health Releases Testing Rates Dashboard

Austin, Texas – In continuing efforts to increase transparency and data for the public, Austin Public Health (APH) has released an additional dashboard that displays the weekly COVID-19 testing rates in Austin-Travis County, with an emphasis on the zip codes seeing the highest increases in positivity rate and new cases.  

The Testing Rates Dashboard includes the overall percent positive, then breaks down the data highlighting the zip codes with the highest increase in weekly percent positive, the highest percent of positive test results, and the highest percent increase in new cases over the last seven days. 

• Desktop Version 

• Mobile Version 

This dashboard will be updated once per week on Tuesdays by 6 PM. 

“As we have brought more people in to analyze the data, we are able to make more information available to the public,” said APH Chief Epidemiologist Janet Pichette. “The positivity rate shows how common the virus may be in the community. We look at this data along with new cases, hospitalizations and deaths for guidance.” 

As of Sept. 11, the 78724 zip code had the highest increase in weekly percent positive at 60.7%, the 78617 zip code had the highest percentage of positive test results at 13.7%, and the 78735 zip code had the highest percent increase in new cases over the last seven days at 300%. 

The percent positive rate is calculated by dividing the number of positive cases by the number of overall tests being performed, multiplied by 100.

The percent increase data is calculated by finding the difference between the current and prior week’s count. The difference is then divided by the prior week’s count and multiplied by 100.  

Data showing the highest percent increase in percent positive and new cases are filtered to only consider the zip codes that fall within the top 50% of positive test results or new case counts, respectively.

This is to exclude zip codes that have experienced an extremely high percent increase in cases but have actual counts that are small relative to other zip codes.  

The Testing Rates Dashboard also includes graphs that illustrate the positivity rate by age group and race/ethnicity as well as a map with the following layers: 

• Percent Positive 

• Cases per 100,000 People 

• Tests Provided per 100,000 People 

• Weekly New Case Count 

• Cumulative Case Count 

Additional Updates 

The additional layers on the map on the Testing Rates Dashboard will be added to the map located on the COVID-19 Surveillance Dashboard. 

The number of active cases and the zip codes with the highest number of new cases over the last week, last 14 days, and last 30 days will also be added to the Surveillance Dashboard. 

On Monday, Sept. 14, APH released a new dashboard that illustrates the impact of COVID-19 on long-term care facilities, which includes nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and intermediate care facilities with one or more cases. 

This dashboard, as well as all other APH COVID-19 dashboards, can be found at austintexas.gov/page/covid-19-dashboards.  

For the latest information and updates, visit AustinTexas.gov/COVID19.