Disturbing Statistic on World O' Meter

[Drahthaardogs]

I have been tracking the "Serious Critical" stat on the site. Today is the first day in over a month we have exceeded 17,000. We were trending down for awhile and the last two weeks stayed below 16,500.

I am not happy with this stat

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Hard to know what it means - more testing or more cases?

[Drahthaardogs]

2. I cannot find where is defines the criteria

But I am assuming it's hospitalization. If so, that would be rather independent of testing. You are either sick enough to be put in a hospital or you aren't.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. That's one of the problems.

In some places you can't get tested unless you are hospitalized; other places you can get tested if you have symptoms or if you are a resident of a care home or a health care worker. The criteria are all over the place so it's really impossible to get an accurate count of how many people have actually become ill. People with positive antibody tests aren't included as active cases. Until there is some consistency we will have no idea how many cases are out there.

[lapfog_1]

3. can't be testing... these are stats that represent illness

this will be like watching the obituaries for the increase in the death rate for a given county or state to figure out the contribution of Covid-19 since many states are attributing death to something other than Covid-19 to hide the upcoming spike in deaths due to the virus.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. States have different criteria for reporting deaths, too.

People die at home without ever being hospitalized and often there is no postmortem test. I'm sure GOP governors are urging health departments not to count deaths from complications like heart attacks brought on by the illness, as you mentioned. They probably aren't including deaths from the use of hydroxychloroquine, either.

[Alex4Martinez]

6. What is that value in proportion to number tested? Last week, two weeks ago?

That's what matters.

If 50% more people were tested then 500 additional Serious Critical would be a net win.

[Drahthaardogs]

9. I believe testing has been more consistent for hospitalized people

So this might be bad

[Newest Reality]

7. I would like to know...

I would like to know how that might correlate with reopenings, beach going, and all the protests in the last month. Many people have shown no respect for the necessary guidelines in various places.

[cilla4progress]

8. I think the best metric

and what it really comes down to is

Is your hospital slammed

[applegrove]

10. Texas is no longer collecting stats or publishing them. I read that

somewhere tonight.