Posted on 07/01/2020 2:13:20 PM PDT by blueyon
The issue is that, for any epidemiology investigation, there needs to be a “case definition”.
Beginning in January 2020, the case definition, worldwide, for COVID-19 was a positive nasopharyngeal or oropharyngeal swab for SARS CoV 2 RNA. This case definition was both provisional (as any new case definition is, pending further knowledge) and appropriate for a new disease caused by a new pathogen where human immunity was presumed to = 0%.
Since then, we have learned a lot. But our increased knowledge still does not allow accurate classification of the large swab + population who are asymptomatic, who have had symptoms for >10 days, or who have antibodies.
They are all still “cases” the first time they come to attention through testing programs.
It is intuitive to say, if they have IgG antibodies to SARS- Co-V 2, that they are both “recovered” and “not infectious” - but this, although logical, remains to be proven. For example, a patient who was positive by swab a month ago and still is is (almost surely) noninfectious, but I do not allow nurses to care for that patient with no PPE.
It’s also a problem that there are over 200 antibody test products still permitted under the March EUA, many of which detect antibodies to other coronaviruses (they are not specifc).
And further down the rabbit hole - there are people, lots of them, who have evidence of cellular immunity to SARS Co-V 2 who have never been exposed and who are swab and antibody negative. It’s attractive to believe that this is because prior CoV infections confer immunity to SARS-CoV-2 in some people, maybe in a lot of people.
Antibody testing is not ready for prime time in terms of counting cases. This won’t be understood well enough to change the provisional case definition for quite some time.
Hope that helps.
We know the numbers are skewed and positives over counted but ultimately it doesn’t matter for several reasons. first there are probably at least 10x the cases that are never tested out there. Second the only number that matters is hospital admissions and ICU admissions. When all this insanity started the. stated purpose was to keep the healthcare system from being overwhelmed. It never has been/. Even New York at it’s self inflicted peak had unused capacity of both beds and ventilators. Hospital numbers have dropped way off since then. I understand even the hospital capacity numbers are being played with but ultimately the system has plenty of room to absorb what’s out there. We should be open as a country. everything else is pure politics
So it’s messy as hell. Which is like many things in the real world, I suppose.
I’m just trying to get a handle on real spike vs. increased testing spike? But there isn’t much of a handle, it’s all very slippery . . .
“I’m just trying to get a handle on real spike vs. increased testing spike?”
It’s both. There’s not enough actual knowledge to make good policy, so it’s not surprising that the policy sucks.
That sounds about right.
And it’s all been so politicized, that even when we know more, I have no hope it will necessarily lead to better policy.
Where does Senator Schumer’s sister work?
So the Dem governors and some Republicans are using the raw high numbers to justify cracking down ever harder and even reversing some of their tentative reopenings to cause even more economic damage.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.