update on US covid case counts
hitting new all time lows once adjusted for testing level
i have said it once and will keep saying it over and over:
reporting case counts without reference to testing level is tantamount to lying.
test any given population twice as much, and you’ll report twice the “cases,” but the only thing that actually changed was your sampling rate. overall prevalence was the same.
this simple fact has made so much of this data untrustworthy and it boggle the mind that public health officials continue to report “raw” case numbers at this point. there is simply no way that even they can possibly not understand this issue. it’s willful deception to push an agenda and the effects on public perception of the pandemic have been dire.
when you adjust US cases for sample rate, you get this: (the 3/27 date is arbitrary and just happens to be what i had the data scaled to. it remains the same curve shape regardless)
this is confirmed by the testing positivity rate:
at ~1.3 million tests a day currently, we’re WAY above the needed sample rate to get representative data. (that seems to be in the ~200-400k range)
this has had a profound effect on the shape of the reported curves. “raw” data, while way down from january, shows us at levels above last april. can any sane human possibly believe this to be true?
it also shows that the seasonal spike this january was far higher than last april, nearly 10X the case count. the reality is that it was ~41% lower once you adjust for testing. given. the waves of epidemic have been attenuating, not growing.
it’s been lining up well with this:
and histrionic fears about “opening = death” have FAILED to pan out.
you cannot make good decisions without good data.
make sure that you get it.
and make sure you ask some very pointed questions of those “experts” who fail to provide it.
they are either not expert, or not honest.
which one makes you want them in charge?
You know there's something wrong when you're in the middle of what they purport is a pandemic worthy of hysterical, draconian measures, and the only thing they seem to care about are "cases," not deaths, not hospitalizations, but cases. Because if you talk about deaths and hospitalizations, you get the picture that we are pretty much through this and have been since roughly the beginning of the year, especially in places that stayed open, put one foot in front of the other, and just dealt with it like adults.
Part of the testing is attributed to hospital-required mandatory testing of all (or most) patients that get admitted. Certainly every elective surgical case is required to get tested prior to surgery. I believe this is true in all states but certainly here in crazy California. Additionally, as everyone knows, the hospitals are incentivized to test ($$$) and will not stop until the incentivization goes away. Thus, we will continue to have a static level of tests done despite a near-zero prevalence, and it will not end until the motivation to test goes away. Even with a true absolute zero prevalence (if reached), the false positives alone will generate the hospital reimbursement income that will more than pay for the cost of testing.