Positivity of Covid19 testing is a stochastic process largely defined by human behavior which can and does vary over time. Your calculation of percent positive may have served to be optimistic when you wanted to open the state. Recent values of positivity are now pessimistic when more of the populace are taking safeguards to protect against contracting Covid19. This process is not wide sense stationary which means time invariant statistical analysis is incorrect from a mathematical viewpoint. Perhaps you could report both methods - at least then, you wouldn't be completely wrong.