The number of reported Covid cases is currently a quarter of what it was at its peak last winter. But Chris Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, estimates that only 4% to 5% of infections are being reported, because so many are uncovered through at-home tests and aren’t reported to public health departments, or they aren’t being detected at all.
The decline in PRC testing and a shift to at-home tests also leaves public health officials increasingly flying blind with regard to the spread of infections because few at-home test results are reported to public health departments, unlike with laboratory tests.
As a response to the assertions you shared, particularly the second paragraph:
This is all true, but it doesn’t mean that we can’t have a good idea what’s going on without testing individual potential cases - most cities are still monitoring sewage that gives incredibly accurate data on how prevalent COVID (among other diseases) is, which neighborhoods are having surges, which variants are infecting people, etc. Plus limited sampling and testing of individuals can still be pretty darn accurate at identifying what’s going on with the rest of the population.
But yeah, a layperson looking at raw case numbers without any kind of error correction is going to come to the wrong conclusions on how things are going with COVID.
I don’t necessarily blame governments for ending the major individual testing efforts - large chunks of the population were disregarding masking / isolation / quarantine protocols anyway and there was little of any means of enforcement. Sucks that it makes it much harder for an individual to protect themselves and their family, but the responsible people will continue to mask up and isolate when warranted, and doing all that testing for a bunch of assholes to disregard anyway is quite a waste of resources.
Lol mmk, as if the CDC doesn’t document their collection methods
Watch out for the 5g
From September 2022:
As a response to the assertions you shared, particularly the second paragraph:
This is all true, but it doesn’t mean that we can’t have a good idea what’s going on without testing individual potential cases - most cities are still monitoring sewage that gives incredibly accurate data on how prevalent COVID (among other diseases) is, which neighborhoods are having surges, which variants are infecting people, etc. Plus limited sampling and testing of individuals can still be pretty darn accurate at identifying what’s going on with the rest of the population.
But yeah, a layperson looking at raw case numbers without any kind of error correction is going to come to the wrong conclusions on how things are going with COVID.
I don’t necessarily blame governments for ending the major individual testing efforts - large chunks of the population were disregarding masking / isolation / quarantine protocols anyway and there was little of any means of enforcement. Sucks that it makes it much harder for an individual to protect themselves and their family, but the responsible people will continue to mask up and isolate when warranted, and doing all that testing for a bunch of assholes to disregard anyway is quite a waste of resources.