For the record - Statistics grow more grim.

[Johnny2X2X]

30. Everyone I know is making spread sheets

I'm an engineer, we like data, so people are sending me spread sheets with some formulas plugged in to track things. I keep pushing back on them with a couple consistent points:

1. We are getting numbers that track the spread of Covid-19, we aren't getting numbers that track the positive tests, we're getting numbers that are tracking the reporting of the positive tests.

2. In order to track the spread of the virus through testing you'd need all the tests available to test anyone with symptoms and all of the states would need to have the same criteria and the same processing time. We have a different situation in regards to testing in every state. Different criteria, different test availability, different reporting rhythms, and different processing time. Some states have backlogs of tens of thousands of tests that are waiting to be processed.

3. So I suppose tracking deaths is more accurate, but even those are full of reporting inconsistencies. I have no idea that many have died from Covid-19 that were never tested pre or post death.

There's a reason why these outbreaks aren't fully understood until they're in the past. Statisticians and scientists will study this and come up with estimates for deaths and cases at some point in the future, and that's the best we'll ever do. People have to realize that when H1N1 happened, the 12,000 estimated deaths were just an estimate, we didn't have 12,000 people who tested positive for it die. We used stats afterwards to come up with the number of infected and dead.