So tired of the posted stats everywhere, showing the numbers WE DONT KNOW THE CURRENT NUMBERS!!

[Iwasthere]

We still are only testing those that are already sick. At the very least we should be sampling people around the country that Don't have it. Jesus! Follow South Korea's model. Test the whole country! A year or two from now, when this thing hits again, it will be valuable info. To know who had it. Especially if vaccines are a failure, or marginally effective.

[matt819]

1. My wife keeps reminding me of this

And told me to just finally stfu about the data. It’s not accurate for any number of reasons and as a result we just don’t know enough. And with this gang of grifters in the us we may never know.

So... I’m heading over to the Johns hopkins site. Lips are zipped.

[mucifer]

2. we actually aren't testing all that are sick and want a test. So there's that

[mathematic]

3. South Korea has only tested .6% of their population

They're not testing the whole country nor are they trying to. Why do you think they were?

[Shrike47]

9. I'm watching CBS News. They just said South Korea tested 10,000 people a day. What's our number?

I get the impression we are doing much fewer tests than that.

[mathematic]

11. Unofficially, 44k over the past day, 35k the day before

I'm still curious about where and how you got the impression that South Korea is testing everybody since they're very clearly not doing that.

[pat_k]

4. Of course we don't...

... but that doesn't mean that looking at number of people tested, number of positives, number of deaths relative to population in states that are testing is meaningless. It doesn't mean that comparing results in such states is meaningless.

[SiliconValley_Dem]

5. We know how many have died--it is at alarming growth rate

We know the growth rate of reported cases is out of control as well.

We do know based on deaths vs. reported relative to other nations that our ACTUAL numbers are many x higher than reported

[caraher]

6. I gauge how bad it is by number of deaths

You're right, case numbers are unknowable. And even COVID-19 death counts are likely off because of inadequate testing, but should be closer to the mark.

We've been tracking pretty steadily about 12 days behind Italy for deaths over the last week or so that I've been looking (i.e. the cumulative deaths in the US roughly matches the cumulative reported deaths for Italy from a bit under two weeks ago).

But yes - there's no substitute for widespread testing. Until we can do that we're flying blind

[Bev54]

7. The US may not be testing everyone but is

already 3rd behind China and Italy with confirmed cases at 26,687 tonight. Half way to Italy's number of cases.

[Demonaut]

8. the Most Current Numbers, we know it's not correct, it lags hugely but we can extrapolate

other cues about outbreaks and the reactions...IT'S DATA

[Crunchy Frog]

10. We're not even testing the sick in many cases.

It's not possible to test the entire country, but they should at least be doing surveillance testing for different regions of the country.

They don't have the resources though, because we're a shithole country with a tinpot would be dictator.

[Igel]

12. No, we don't.

But it's not like we're only testing those with COVID-19. Let's not be confused on that point.

Granted, we're pretty much testing only those who are showing some symptoms, with some notable exceptions. That means we can put some constraints on the data because that's the population with the greatest concentration of COVID cases. Conservatively, it looks like about 75% of the tests come back negative among the population *most* likely to be infected. What's the remaining 75%? Various flus, other coronaviruses, other stuff.

A lot of states have reported even lower ratios, and the number is almost certainly lower because a number of states report positives but no negatives. That means that 75% is a lower bound for the ratio of negative:total results.

Most of the results have also come from areas with increasing death rates, so they're basically testing hot spots.