Work your way around this site -
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
You can look at countries, click on USA and work around the states or even click on a state and check out a few counties. Several, even many, support more tests than people in given areas. Small example from my personal search. The population of Hamilton County NY (where we have a house and live much of the time) is 4611. That has remained relatively stable for years. The total number of tests now reported is 4704 (93 more than the total population). What is being done is that people who are tested more than once (and in some cases, many times more than once as they are tested frequently and in some cases DAILY) are counted as a new test. If they are frequently tested, often it is because they are positive upon the first test and it is repeated in a few days and then perhaps several times more. Each positive test, made upon the same person, can be reported as a positive test. This clouds the meaning of the statistics as we really need to know how many confirmed cases of the virus is in the community. Does simply having a positive blood test mean someone has an active case? And if that same person is tested 7 times in one week and 5 of those tests are positive, do we have 5 confirmed cases? I have been in medicine for a very long time and kept informed of CDC data on a fairly constant basis. I have no clue what any of these numbers are beginning to mean.
Interesting that these charts have shown China reporting between 5 and 20 new cases daily but not one single new death in months! Even though they maintain that several are listed in critical condition. We have to admit that the medical care in the USA is at least the equal of most of the world, yet many so called backward third world nations maintain a much lower percentage of new deaths relative to cases than we do. Lies, d@mn lies and statistics!!!!
Another point to look at is if this pandemic is truly one with high mortality, then we should expect that overall mortality in the USA should be far higher this year than in previous years without the pandemic. I do not have all the figures as yet, but it looks like even in the age groups that are most severely affected (70+), the overall mortality rate is little changed so far. Not sure what this signifies but perhaps most of the people dying with COVID positive tests are people who are actually dying from other causes who just also have COVID. After all, the life expectancy here as of now has not changed all that much and people over a certain age do in fact die. I would love to see the number of deaths reported broken down by age groups of those who have passed away with COVID who do not have at least 2 or 3 underlying severe conditions that in themselves cause high mortality. i cannot of course speak for anywhere else but here in Ocean County NJ we have seen 1200 reported deaths from COVID including a large number in the Hassidic Orthodox community in Lakewood NJ. I have attended at the 4 largest hospitals in the county and have found virtually all to be over the age of 65 and almost all to have at least 2 severe comorbidities.
Again, just my opinion, but we need a lot more analysis of this pandemic which has brought such fear to the public. And now back to hockey - Raelly wish we can get to see this team on the ice playing as coach Smith seems to be able to still keep some very good recruits interested in Troy and i think we have the nucleus of something special.
