What exactly is a “case”? The USAToday article doesn’t say. Neither do other articles or cable news doctors and other “experts.” Is a “case” simply a positive test?
The CDC answers this question with a “case definition.” A case is not just a positive test. Instead what is needed is, “Presumptive laboratory evidence AND either clinical criteria OR epidemiologic evidence.” Notice the AND, meaning not simply a positive test.
Yet what the media trumpets as “surging cases” are only positive tests. There is no discussion of whether or not any of the individuals with positive tests are showing symptoms or are actually sick with the Chinese flu. Or if they are contagious and needing to be quarantined.
As an analogy, suppose we routinely checked peoples’ blood sugar or blood pressure and called any single high reading as diabetes or hypertension. Imagine testing everyone’s blood sugar after lunch, when it naturally rises, and calling anyone with a reading over 140 a diabetic. We would have a surge in diabetes, yet the vast majority of these individuals are not actually diabetic.
The COVID PCR test is quite sensitive, amplifying any viral particles found in the nose, whether dead or alive, repeatedly until the test is positive. Most of these positive “cases” are neither contagious or symptomatic, as even the New York Times acknowledged.
The more people we test, the more positive tests will result. Nancy Pelosi called for “testing, testing, testing” and that is exactly what we now have. The U.S. is currently performing over a million tests per day, with just under 5 percent coming back positive.
The U.S. is performing 2.87 daily tests per thousand people, far more than most countries. For comparison, Canada is a third lower at 2.09 tests per thousand, France 1.9, Germany 1.87, Australia 1.21, and India 0.82.
More tests mean more positive results, but not necessarily cases of COVID. For example, the U.S. performing 2.87 tests per thousand people compared with Mexico performing 0.08 tests per thousand will yield dramatically different results, showing the U.S. “surging” in cases as the media describes.
This then fuels the false narrative that the U.S. has so many cases of COVID due to the orange man’s ineptitude rather than the orange man ramping up testing, as everyone called for, to a level unmatched by any major country.
Hospitalizations, a measure of disease severity, have been steadily declining since March, with a small bump in mid-summer. They've gone from a high of over 3,000 hospitalizations per week last spring, to less than 700 per week now, according to the CDC.
There is no mention of how many New Yorkers are actually sick or hospitalized, simply positive tests as New York is following Nancy Pelosi’s recommendation of “testing, testing, testing.” In fact, back in July, New York had likely achieved herd immunity based on getting hit hard early in the course of the pandemic. Yet for inexplicable reasons New York is closing down again.
In my state of Colorado, Governor Jared Polis extended the mask mandate for another 30 days due to “a rise in hospitalizations” for the Chinese virus. This extension conveniently goes just past the election.
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