That’s, uh, kind of a big deal.
Mismatch versus PCR is another way of saying the spit test is inaccurate. Which is exactly why we have an FDA.
Florida reporting 219 deaths and 3,922 cases today
Can’t draw any meaningful inference from these numbers because their testing is so low, and they are working through a large backlog of deaths
I think we’re still seeing generally good news, rather than artificially low numbers from depressed testing.
The thing I’ve been focused on is the estimated recent cohort CFR, which I calculate as the 7-day average deaths divided by the 7-day average cases from 21 days ago. If that spikes up, it would suggest that we’re not catching as many cases as we previously were. But it’s been nice and flat:
When I apply that estimated recent CFR to cases, I get a daily estimate of the forward-looking deaths. This approach suggests that 7-day average deaths should be falling below 1,000 soon.
Obviously big caveat is that schools are opening, which isn’t accounted for at all in this historical data.
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This is not Florida and the data has a big lag, but it’s interesting and doesn’t have the problem with testing.
It’s Minority Report. Not sure how accurately she can relate so much of this to so many movies.
What’s the current thinking? I can’t find newer stuff on it
Imagine living somewhere that actually worked to get rid of the virus so people could go to events like that.
Of course, people here still do go to events like that (Sturgis!), it’s just their risk is much higher.
I’m old enough to remember trump supporters being fans of Fauci back when we were starting to open for business.
Not necessarily if it’s measuring infectious vs. infected.
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I think you misunderstand. The thresholds are different.
The quick test is supposedly just looking at shedding. Possible you are positive by pcr early or late in the infection cycle but not shedding.
I think the reluctance is- does the test accurately indicate infectivity (not infection).
That I don’t know the answer too. Obviously false negatives are the big worry that someone gets the ok to go to class but then spreads it.
Still trying to find more details.
Nice analysis. Thanks.
I think some places (most notably South Carolina and Arizona of states that saw big spikes) are doing better and some places like Florida and Texas are simply making testing less available. I also think it is odd that Florida was doing 50-70,000 tests a day pre-tropical storm and then made an announcement that they were closing testing centers down and magically have been doing 10-30,000 a day ever since.
In a place that is actually significantly going down you can see testing plateau or even rise and the positivity rate/cases decline. We saw that with New York and we have been seeing this happen to some extent this wave with Arizona and South Carolina. Meanwhile in Florida and Texas they are still near all time highs for positivity and are just testing less. That tells me it has more to do with testing than an actual significant drop in cases.
Like you said though the death rate should be starting to decline by now if the drop in cases are real. We are a month past the peak 7dma for nationwide cases so the next week or two will be telling.
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Is there any way they could be fudging deaths too? Like the patient died (and was treated as if they have covid the whole time), but their death isn’t officially covid yet because the test is still backlogged? Or maybe they’re dragging their feet on putting covid on the death cert w/o a confirmed test or something?
A doctor on MSNBC last night said that he believes part of why testing has declined is frustration. Results take so long to come back that people just aren’t bothering.
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Health officials suggest that almost a quarter of new clusters have been linked to workplaces outside medical settings, reports BBC Paris correspondent Lucy Williamson.
“The library is often a hub for the community, and we identified the most vulnerable cohort of our community would be the elderly.”
So the library staff pulled from their database the phone number of every library member over the age of 70 – a total of 8,000 records.
Then the librarians started calling those members. All of them.
“We called them to say hi, see how they were doing, and then see if there was anything they needed help with, such as access to services, counselling support, tech help, that kind of thing. We would then refer them to a service that would help them,” said Dempster.
What can you say - outstanding 
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Sure. Ultimately we won’t have good data until we can calculate excess deaths, though.
I think, aggregate COVID deaths are likely to be undercounted by 10-20% in the US, but that number varies from state to state. I am super frustrated because I just saw a state-by-state analysis showing reported COVID deaths as a % of excess deaths, and now I can’t find it. But that analysis showed really big variation in that percentage across states. That variation might be due to intentional differences in COVID identification/reporting or completely unrelated.
Agree about South Carolina, Arizona, and Florida. The governor of Texas claims they’re not at capacity but people aren’t coming in to get tested.
Here’s a fun anecdote that gives you an insight into Texas that might explain that. My best friend growing up works in the Fort Worth fire department. He has had numerous high risk things he’s done. He’s in multiple high risk groups. He knows how I feel about the pandemic (I convinced him Plandemic was going to be b.s. before he decided to check it out anyway when it first rose up). He has no idea whether he has had COVID-19, though he said he was sick with symptoms similar in early March.
Every time I’ve talked with him, I’ve asked him if he’s been tested. Every time, he says no. I asked him why he refuses to do so and he says it’s because he doesn’t want to end up on the FW fire department testing merry-go-round. He said if you ever test positive, you have to get basically continuous testing for a long period of time and he doesn’t want that. He won’t even get an off the books test (nasal swab) because that will put him on that testing cycle. I asked him if getting an antibody test would put him on the cycle and he said no. I recommended he give blood to get the antibody test results given with doing that. He said he would seriously consider it but to my knowledge hasn’t done it yet.
The last time we talked, he told me that they’ve barely spent any money since the beginning of the pandemic. He then told me that when they went on their vacation to Florida they just sat on the beach doing nothing. 
I avoided saying anything and that was the last conversation we’ve had in a few weeks. Any time he disappears like this, I gather there’s a reason. He once disappeared for about 3 weeks and when we talked again, he told me had been in quarantine for 14 days due to being exposed in his work. I’m guessing he’s not telling me a lot.