Anyone want to contest that statement or document the facts? pl
RSS- Barbara Ann on The Great Taking
- William Eaton and The Battle of Derna
- The battle for Ocheretyne
- Supreme Court oral arguments to be heard on April 25 about presidential immunity for official acts
- Nasa’s Voyager-1 sends usable data from deep space
- The Wondrous Oak
- Three Seas Summit: Vilnius 2024
- Tit for tat until it all goes boom
- Deadly H5N1 avian influenza strain detected on mainland Antarctica
- “BYD is launching its next-gen Blade EV battery soon with more range and even lower cost”
One could have a cough and be a “case.”
CDC
Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)
2020 Interim Case Definition, Approved April 5, 2020
Clinical Criteria
At least two of the following symptoms: fever (measured or subjective), chills, rigors, myalgia, headache, sore throat, new olfactory and taste disorder(s)
OR
At least one of the following symptoms: cough, shortness of breath, or difficulty breathing
OR
Severe respiratory illness with at least one of the following:
Clinical or radiographic evidence of pneumonia, OR
Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).
AND
No alternative more likely diagnosis
https://wwwn.cdc.gov/nndss/conditions/coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19/case-definition/2020/
And indeed, the number of deaths from COVID-19 is considerably less than the number of deaths with the SARS-COV-2 virus, though it is often convenient for the authorities to confuse them. (Though not in the case of George Floyd, of course, where the useful narrative is White Racism, even if the truth is Excited Delirium.)
bgbh
“Considerably?” Go do the arithmetic. Number of deaths divided by number of COVID cases times 100. This will give you the % of deaths among the infected. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/cases-in-us.html
Today’s fatality rate among the infected in the US is 2.8% This is cumulative. For the population of the US as a whole the fatality rate is .04% thus far. That is four one hundredths of one percent.
Even when the data clearly proves the direct opposite, there remains a mass of people who still consider even a remote and random exposure to anyone not wearing a mask is an automatic death sentence.
Proving there is little science and a lot of self-serving hysteria still going on, which remains far more dangerous than the virus in the long run.
Covid became the Zombie Apocalypse for many, many people and this misperception has not lost its tenacious grip. Not sure why, unless it remains a 100% political surrogate at this time. or something else, much deeper.
The willing acceptance of an invisible threat capable of wreaking immediate hell fire and damnation for any deviation from symbolic conformity to the Message, makes me wonder why it became so trendy recently to reject “God” who was always watching over us, and making us accountable for our sins. Now Covid Conformity takes on many of these religious overtones.
Are we witnessing what an “unchurched” society looks like today, which in fact have become quite religious but to newly chosen gods? Is the need for a spiritual cosmology so transcendent in the human psyche that elimination of one traditional form of worship has simply been replaced with another, but with many of the same trappings?
Religion in one form or another has long been the answer when faced life’s biggest question – mortality, The Church of Green – we are all gonna die from global warming – also played a strong role gathering in the unchurched, who exhibited remarkable church like devotions, rituals, shunning, and slavish adherence to arbitrary dogma as the One True Word.
Is Covid Hysteria just one more mutation of the God Particle? Perhaps we need to stand back and assess what a formerly traditionally “religious” nation has done in the past several years of official absence. Are there different reactions to Covid among those who still consider themselves traditionally religious, versus the emergent “unchurched” populations?
NB: I am not proposing support for any one religion or denomination or demand that the US be officially a “Christian Nation”. I only make my case for the profound role that personal and seasoned spiritual cosmology plays in our lives, that is not much talked about of late.
Superficial slogans are not substitutes. Internalized bedrock transformation is the real deal i am looking for. A Martin Luther moment: “Here I stand. I can do no other. ”
Surprisingly, I see this unflappable dedication to personal principle among some very young Gen Z persons and will just have to wait to see if this reaches a transformative critical mass.
Reminding myself change always has three stages and they can never be taken out of order: (1) mourning for what is being lost-(2) chaos in the interregnum-(3) transformation into a new stability.
And the reminder that CHAZ only lasted two weeks.
Colonel:
RE: Today’s fatality rate among the infected in the US is 2.8%
I get 5.18% for 24JUN20
Teacher always told me: “SHOW YOUR MATH!”, so here it is:
(121,117/2,336,615)*100=5.18%
(TOTAL DEATHS/TOTAL CASES)*100=%Total Deaths
mike46
This is correct AMONG THE INFECTED. Among the dead in Virginia from CODIV-19, 80% were inhabitants of long term care facilities.
As should be obvious, “cases” are just people that test positive. Deaths occur to some fraction of those that test positive, most between 10 to 30 days later. Lots of other people get Covid-19 but never bother to get tested because they either have no symptoms or are mild and indistinguishable from a light cold.
The recent uptick in cases appears to be from young people finally being able to go to bars and parties where close proximity and lots of loud talking spread it. These people rarely get very sick let alone die but they sure push up the case count. It’s possible these people will spread it to older folks, possibly grandma or granddad and they will push up death rates later. But this secondary effect will be much smaller so I don’t expect the death rates, which will be delayed in any case, will rise anywhere near that of the case count.
Simulation is NOT science.
I suspect that over the course of their long and illustrious careers, that the Colonel and TTG and many other correspondents have participated in various war games (simulations), marketing simulations, and other such mathematical assumptions run through various black box computer guesstimates of how things might almost work in the real world. Rand Corp. recently announced that in their simulations of war between the USA and PRC and or Russia, that the USA gets its ass handed to it … right up to the point that losing unleashes the BOOM. You can enjoy the exact same “science” in any of a huge collection of video games.
Usually, simulation is harmless you get to play a game of what it within some relatively innocuous sandbox. Unfortunately for the USA and most of the rest of the world, a really inept and poorly designed simulation run from a mediocre academic facility came up with crap projections that in turn became the basis for “The Science” of lockdowns, social distancing, and stopping the economy.
@ mike46
Your math is sound but your variables are incorrect. The random testing I have seen in various states show infection rates of 10-20%. Extrapolated to the entire country this means between 33-66 million cases, not 2,336,615. Obviously we don’t know for sure but equally obviously the “official” case count is bogus. Also, from a scientific standpoint only the deaths of people without severe underlying conditions should be included in the numerator.
pl
The US math.
Resolved cases about 1.17 million of which 11% died, a further 1.35 million are still in the system and have no outcome yet.
2.5 million cases is going to be an under count but there is no clear picture of how big an under count, but even with the higher estimates, it far from reaching a level that would cause spread to be slowed by any level of heard immunity. All of this has happened in 8 weeks much of which occurred at some level of shut down. Things should continue at the current rate for a further year before there is any appreciable natural breaking effect, this could be sooner if things are relaxed but at the cost of additional deaths.
The best balance would be localised tightening in areas of rapid spread but for that you need PCR tests (with a rapid turn-around) and lots of contact tracing to know where to lock-down, we are not doing that yet so blanket restrictions are being applied causing problems where there is little of no spread.
CK,
If you are trying to destroy the USA as it exists and us the self inflicted crisis to do so then all that academic modeling is very effective. Imagine what government said people will impose by fiat when the media manipulation helps them succeed.
CK I will have to differ with you. My educational background is physics undergrad and comp sci graduate degree. In my comp sci studies, I took some emphasis in operations analysis and through that models and simulations. I would argue that all science advances through the use of mods and sims. But like anything else you need to know the limitations and assumptions behind what you are doing.
Colonel,
I am wondering whether I have been banned or whether my recent posts did not make it to your inbox.
Gratefully
g
Dear bgbh
“Today’s fatality rate among the infected in the US is 2.8% This is cumulative. For the population of the US as a whole the fatality rate is .04% thus far. That is four one hundredths of one percent”.
0.04% of 325 million is 1,300,000 death in the US if this novel virus is allowed to continue spreading amongst the population. This could be over as little as 1-2 years.
the numbers of hospitalization and ICU admits will be 10 – 20 multiples
the other long term complications including kidney and cardio vascular complications will be multiple of that as well
all that will lead to the collapse of the healthcare system and the resultant death from all other causes that we are no longer able to attend to
guidoamm
You are not banned.
all
The epidemiologist crowd seem to think the economic devastation wrought on America by the panicked shutdown and its political effect is some kind of game to be played with models. History is being changed by the shutdown and the profit the Democrats and their idiot marxist friends are making from it. Sober up! What matters in fact is the number of actual COVID-19 deaths of those who are not health compromised. Nothing else matters.
@ScottS
The simulation used to project the # of covid deaths was not science. For just two examples, the model had no allowance for hospital bed increase because it takes years to build a hospital. At least that is how the academic understands construction. Yet field hospitals were erected in Huawei, NYC, and elsewhere in the course of a week and two hospital ships were readies and available ( and unused ) within days. The second example dates back a few years to the Hoof and Mouth outbreak in England where the exact same simulation and professor was off by a factor of twenty just as it was this year with covid.
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/484622-expert-behind-covid-19-shutdown/
Simulations of ballistics are close to reality because the models contain tested and proven science from outside the model, simulations of pandemics are at best honest guesstimates of unknown behaviours and at worst political fear balls designed to advance some non scientific agenda. Simulations of war are very popular and can be purchased from Steam on line on sale for less than $50.
sam,
7,000,000+ die every year in the US. That million and a third you are talking about are part of that reality. Those treatments for ‘other long term complications’ were declared non-essential by state governments in the glorious liberal blue states. It was and is malfeasance. The health care system is not going to collapse.
Mike 46: There are different kinds of fatality rates:
Case fatilty rate is what you provide, as it uses diagnosed cases it depends on testing levels and strategies, it is not a very good number comparing different countries.
The interesting number is the infection fatality rate, as this determines the number of people actually dying from the corona virus, diagnosed and not diagnosed. It is around 0.4% with enough ICU beds.
Just addressing the issue of was this a real or fake issue.
One view of the stats that caught my eye … https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html
the last graph at the very bottom of the page shows percent of deaths in the U.S. from all causes dues to PIC (Pneumonia, Influenza, and Covid). It compares the years 2018, 2019, and 2020.
PIC deaths typically fluctuate in the 6% to 8% range, this year it popped to 28%. PIC includes people who died with symptoms related to respiratory distress.
Are we doing the right thing now? Different topic. We blew our early response and will blow our next one because our travel bans are politically driven. Too slow on the trigger to stop travel from allies. Didn’t stop travel from Brazil until they were #2 in infections, had to keep importing those visa wives I guess.
Actually, the health system could collapse. Came close in NYC which has better resources than most cities. No one reported on how bad things there really were. Smaller towns and cities are especially vulnerable, but if population density really is a factor then maybe they will be OK. What you need to remember is that very few of our 7 million deaths per year are accompanied by a 3 week hospitalization with most of that time in the ICU. About 5% of those in the 50-64 age group end up needing hospitalization, an average stay of 4-5 days. We dont really have lots of extra capacity in our medical system. We can put up some extra instant hospitals but they are going to be pretty inadequate, speaking as someone who did medical care in tents. We dont have lots of extra personnel.
Look at Houston, which does have a very good hospital system. They are now having to put adults into Texas Children Hospital. That is one of the premier Children’s Hospitals in the world. Some kids will miss out on the quality care they should have if they could go there. (Disclaimer: Have friends working there so biased.) Ultimately, I expect that if things get bad enough people will self mitigate so I dont expect widespread failures but we could have individual failures like we had in NYC.
Steve
Sars Cov2: Government Mass Murder?
When Jeffrey Epstein left society forever last year, what happened [before and ‘after’]?
This metaphor of gross government incompetence infects – and elucidates — all COVID-19 discussion, i.e., “official” discussion by our pseudo scientists — with an agenda quite at odds with what they are supposed to be about: science.
On May 28 Massachusetts [finally] began to release number of deaths of the disease occurring in nursing homes.
Hampshire County has been one of the least hit regions on a per capita basis.
The state’s department of public health data showed nearly 8 out of every 10 COVID-19 deaths in this county happened in nursing homes. [Note: this is not Hampden County, just south, that includes Holyoke Soldiers Home, where, currently almost 100 deaths in that facility confirmed.]
The 82 deaths in Hampshire County reported May 28 show 64 occurred in the following long term care centers:
Center for Extended Care at Amherst, 18 deaths
Vero Health and Rehab of South Hadley, 8 deaths
Highview of Northampton, 11 deaths
CareOne at Northampton, 21 deaths
Elaine Cetner at Hadley, 6 deaths
The Holyoke soldiers home is a state and federal government incompetence and horror show.
Nursing homes in Hampshire County, private business incompetence and horror.
[[I postulate that the “COVID peak” represents an accelerated mass homicide of immune-vulnerable individuals, and individuals made more immune-vulnerable, by government and institutional actions, rather than being an epidemiological signature of a novel virus, irrespective of the degree to which the virus is novel from the perspective of viral speciation]], says Physicist Denis Rancourt, PhD
This, from his essay published this month titled, ‘All-cause mortality during COVID-19: No plague and a likely signature of mass homicide by government response’.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341832637_All-cause_mortality_during_COVID-19_No_plague_and_a_likely_signature_of_mass_homicide_by_government_response
Massachusetts data showed Hampshire county, overall, with third lowest death rate, with 50 per 100,000 people, of the state’s 13 counties, a rate of 0.0005, which is 0.050 percent, related to COVID-19.
Hampden County, at 0.117 percent had greatest death rate in the state, the DPH data shows.
Death rate for the state’s counties showed:
Barnstable, 0.051 percent
Berkshire, 0.031
Bristol, 0.068
Dukes and Nantucket, 0.003
Essex, 0.110
Franklin, 0.065
Hampden, 0.117
Hampshire, 0.050
Middlesex, 0.095
Norfolk, 0.111
Plymouth, 0.101
Suffolk, 0.105
Worcester, 0.085
At a homeless shelter in Amherst, part of Hampshire County, there was zero COVID-19 cases, either among residents or among staff.
All 50 residents and staff had been tested and the results are in stark contradistinction from other facilities. [The Amherst shelter was not run by the federal or state government, and is based at a local church.]
For Boston, data showed 36.3 percent of homeless testing positive, and 30 percent of shelter staff positive, according to US Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention data.
In San Francisco, 66 percent of homeless tested positive; 16 percent of staff did so, according to the CDC report published on April 22.
Some speculate COVID-19 is another simulated “mass casualty event.”
Did Pompeo actually say so? Back in March he called it “a live exercise” what ever this is supposed to mean.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Qscuw_3aUk
For German speaking folks, . . .
[[. . . Die beobachtbaren Wirkungen und Auswirkungen von COVID-19 lassen keine ausreichende Evidenz dafür erkennen, dass es sich – bezogen auf die gesundheitlichen Auswirkungen auf die Gesamtgesellschaft – um mehr als um einen Fehlalarm handelt. Durch den neuen Virus bestand vermutlich zu keinem Zeitpunkt eine über das Normalmaß hinausgehende Gefahr für die Bevölkerung (Vergleichsgröße ist das übliche Sterbegeschehen in DEU). Es sterben an Corona im Wesentlichen die Menschen, die statistisch dieses Jahr sterben, weil sie am Ende ihres Lebens angekommen sind und ihr geschwächter Körper sich beliebiger zufälliger Alltagsbelastungen nicht mehr erwehren kann (darunter der etwa 150 derzeit im Umlauf befindlichen Viren). Die Gefährlichkeit von Covid-19 wurde überschätzt. (innerhalb eines Vierteljahres weltweit nicht mehr als 250.000 Todesfälle mit Covid-19, gegenüber 1,5 Mio. Toten während der Influenzawelle 2017/18). Die Gefahr ist offenkundig nicht größer als die vieler anderer Viren. Wir haben es aller Voraussicht nach mit einem über längere Zeit unerkannt gebliebenen globalen Fehlalarm zu tun. – Dieses Analyseergebnis ist von KM 4 auf wissenschaftliche Plausibilität überprüft worden und widerspricht im Wesentlichen nicht den vom RKI vorgelegten Daten und Risikobewertungen. . . ]]
Translated as: The observable effects of COVID-19 do not provide sufficient evidence that, in terms of health effects on society as a whole, it is more than a false alarm. The new virus presumably did not at any time pose a risk to the population that exceeded the normal level (comparative figure is the usual death rate in DEU). Corona essentially kills the people who statistically die this year because they have reached the end of their lives and their weakened bodies can no longer cope with any random everyday stress (including the approximately 150 viruses currently in circulation). The dangerousness of Covid-19 was overestimated. (No more than 250,000 deaths from Covid-19 worldwide in a quarter of a year, compared to 1.5 million deaths during the 2017/18 influenza wave). The danger is obviously no greater than that of many other viruses. We are likely to be dealing with a global false alarm that has remained undetected for a long time. This analysis result has been checked by KM 4 for scientific plausibility and essentially does not contradict the data and risk assessments submitted by the RKI.
The link to this, on page 2 of German Ministry of the Interior, [‘leaked’ report] at
https://www.ichbinanderermeinung.de/Dokument93.pdf
Stephen Kohn blew the whistle on this, last month.
Strategic Culture Foundation discusses this report, all in English at
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/05/29/german-official-leaks-report-denouncing-corona-as-global-false-alarm/
-30-
Ulenspiegel,
“dying from the corona virus” However, as has been reported numerous times, the US is counting all deaths in which the virus is present as dying from the virus, which is intentionally misleading.
“0.04% of 325 million is 1,300,000 death”
1% = 3,250,000
.1%= 325,000
.01% =32,500
.04%= 130,000
It may be wrong to damn epidemiologists for not assessing the potential economic impacts of what their science tells them.
The lockdowns are ending. We will follow Sweden’s path but it’s going to be a long haul economically for us as it was for them. Sweden didn’t lock-down but their economy crashed much the same anyway. People still abandoned the hospitality industries there, for the most part. I chalk that up to the conundrum this particular COVID presents to the young and healthy: “Just a flu to me…but what if I’m the guy who drags it into the house and it kills Nana? I’ll have to live with that.”
People are going to hunker down for some time yet to come, lock downs or no.
The recent growth in Covid-19 cases has a lot to do with the re-opening of the country and hitting the younger people more than the older people presently. Now one would expect a re-opening would bring on more cases and there is a cost to that versus the larger cost of shutting down the economy. Hospitalization rates are up but not dramatically and certainly not in proportion to prior percentages of positive cases.
Locally I know the testing has changed from a test saying you either have it or you do not to a test that says you have it, you had it or you do not have it. Thus are we now are seeing higher test positives of individuals who have it or had it which makes the increased numbers not something to be radically concerned about though I will still wear the mask for the benefit of others.
Anyone who has experienced visiting a full range of “long term care facilities” understands in some/many cases they are warehouses for the drying – and historically such places are not an unknown cultural phenomenon.
In some/many such cases a flu death is a merciful option. A flu death has often been called an “old man’s friend”. Do we have a national schizophrenia about the very elderly and frail actually dying?
BTW: I sat on a hospital bioethics committee for 20 years. My comments are more than fanciful speculation. California now has officially recognized the potential “dual effect” when administering pain control medications. This was previously only whispered among physicians and families, when used as an informal, but unsanctioned, option to ease and/or accelerate the dying passage.
Now Calif health care directives (living wills) allow the signer to consent to the “dual effect”, when upfront pain control medications are requested: admitting the signer understands “their use can hasten the act of dying”.
Well, there is also the case being made that now over half the cases are 35 or so. The American lack of response will thereby have a generation suffering the consequences of long term debility. It’s understandable that the US Army will not accept any enlistees that have tested positive for Covid-19. The Virus does not care!
master Slacker
There is debility and then there is serious debility. I have had half a dozen debilitating tropical diseases and somehow managed to serve a full career. Do you have a citation on the army thing?
All
I will say it again! What matters is how many unimpaired people actually DIE of the disease. The media idiots confuse cases with deaths. I just heard some self appointed hero say in Texas that they are now testing everyone in sight in great numbers. Since this virus is widespread and largely or totally asymptomatic why would there not be a great number of identified infections? As for grandma’s vulnerability I hope she had a good life. We did.
Master slacker,
“the consequences of long term debility.”
I think we really need to look at the consequences of all those panicked women on depression meds who are driving a great deal of this panic.
“One of the more startling statistics in the report, which analyzed prescription claims data from 2.5 million insured Americans from 2001 to 2010, is that one in four women is dispensed medication for a mental health condition,… ”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/women-and-prescription-drug-use_n_1098023
Chuba, you need to compare PIC rates to all cause death rates, simply because of the intentionally corrupted and financially beneficial designation of a “with covid” death, suddently becoming a “from covid” death.
That could explain your “jump” in PIC numbers. In other words, what other all cause death rates in fact went down during this same time period.
If there as a major strategic error, albeit initiated in good faith, it was putting a cash bounty on anything labeled a “covid death”. This fraud has been exposed now for a long time. Put money on the table, and someone will pick it up.
“Since this virus is widespread and largely or totally asymptomatic why would there not be a great number of identified infections?”
It’s not just that the total number of tests has gone up – and with it the total number of people infected. It is also a fact that the rate of positive results per tests administered is also going up.
CDC: “The overall percentage of respiratory specimens testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 increased from week 24 (6.5%) to week 25 (7.6%) nationally, driven by increases in seven regions.”
That shouldn’t be happening, as during the time that the tests were in short supply then people were only being tested if there was a suspicion that they had come into contact with the virus.
The rate of infection is accelerating, which indicates that the USA is going into a “second wave” without ever fully coming out of the “first wave”.
Everyone can shrug their shoulders and say that it doesn’t matter, fine, that’s your prerogative, but don’t pretend that it isn’t happening.
Because it most definitely is.
Yeah, right
My WAG is that the population is already widely and deeply infected and that massive testing now being done is merely revealing that.
“My WAG is that the population is already widely and deeply infected and that massive testing now being done is merely revealing that.”
Exactly! I’m pretty sure I had CV-19 from 2/26-2/28 (wed-fri). Three days in bed sleeping. It was a mild flu. Just to play it safe I went to the doctor’s on March 2nd (mon) to get cleared to go back to work. No test, but I did get a chest xray. Funny, no follow up from them…
Now I did my own back tracking and figure I probably got it at my ex-BIL’s place a few weeks before. It slowly worked it’s way through his extended family that runs a jeweler store. Only the last case in April was verified with a test. The first was the grandfather way back in December…
Bottom line: Pretty much everyone is going to get it. Most will never know it, some will get sick, a few will die WITH it, and an insignificant number will actually die FROM it.
I spent most of the 2000’s designing the electronics for “bio-particle” detectors and I can say with certainty that the only positive effect a mask might have against a virus particle is if it keeps you from chewing your fingernails…
re: PL: “My WAG is that the population is already widely and deeply infected and that massive testing now being done is merely revealing that.”
I tend to agree. JJackson’s estimate of 10-20 pct infections is probably right, as he has the expertise. If so, then epidemic is likely not yet at the threshold of 70-85 pct exposed and (temporarily?) immune which will cause natural decline of infections. So there may be a ways to go. The key factor is. if peaking seen, to slow down the arrivals of new serious cases — ie hospitalization required — to not overwhelm facilities, staffing, and resources. Selective localized methods of reducing transmission – masks to protect others, hand washing to protect oneself, distancing, vitamins, whatever.
On the stats — it will be hard times, but not catastrophic. Whether one can take comfort in that outlook (terrible losses but not catastrophe) or not is a matter of personality, I guess. Disputes over attribution of causes of death, is a non-issue. I read recently, in a short history of the Guadalcanal campaign, that combat deaths of US troops were about the same as deaths due to malaria and other jungle factors. One might attribute all deaths to the combat as that was the reason soldiers went there. In the end it does not matter. Best practice is the same — ensure safety from active threats, and general health via medical and nutrition and so on.
What can we (direct) non-participants do, if no health-care skills? Stay sane, stay disciplined, don’t spread gloom, don’t spread crazy ideas, and provide support in local individual ways as feasible.
Best wishes,
kr
I suspect what out politicians are mostly reacting to is what their local ERs and ICUs tell them. Saw in the “news” today the Govs of Texas and Florida reacting, and that their ICUs were filling up. I recall Trump’s big turn after seeing the body bags in NYC.
The stats of infection are mostly estimates and extrapolations from the small number of tests available. They are easily, and somewhat correctly, dismissable.
Our for-profit “news” has a habit: Scaring people. Scared people are less likely to channel surf away during commercials. This is how they make their bread and butter in normal times, so much so it’s probably fair to say nearly all of the positions have been filled by people who demonstrate strong and reflexive ability in the art. Unfortunate.
“My WAG is that the population is already widely and deeply infected and that massive testing now being done is merely revealing that.”
And I agree with the statement that massive testing is boosting the number of people who are testing positive, as you would expect.
But that doesn’t account for why the rate of infection per test administered is going up.
Remember, you are in a situation *now* where the testing being administered on a more indiscriminate basis versus *earlier* then the only people tested were those who were either already showing symptoms or had been in contact with people who were showing symptoms i.e. authorities already had some inkling that the person may test positive.
I would expect the NUMBER of infections to go way up, but the RATIO of positive results per test administered to go down.
That is not what the testing is showing.