Why have the number of new cases and positive test rate in Florida increased since reopening measures were taken?
Is it because the virus has become more deadly or more people are getting sick because they're ignoring the social distancing guidelines or coming into contact with more people than before?
While you might conclude as much after reading such an article as the one posted above, if you do some research on your own you'll find there's much more to the story than just what's in that one article.
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"The state of Florida has seen a spike in coronavirus cases in the first couple of weeks of June while around 27,000 COVID-19 tests have been administered each day. Testing is more available than it was at the beginning of the pandemic. The state’s daily positive test rate has also gone up in the past week."
SOURCE:
https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2020/06/18/update-track-floridas-rate-of-positive-covid-19-tests/================
#1 - More people are being tested on a daily basis than in the past.
More tests have been administered in the first two weeks of June than the previous two week period.
The number of daily tests administered has increased during the last few weeks.
Even in light of an unchanging positive test rate, the number of new cases will increase as the number of tests are administered - that's how math works when the denominator increases and the numerator is a function of it.
All that aside, how can the increase in positive test rate be explained? Even if more people are being tested, how can it be explained that a greater percentage of them are testing positive than before?
Does that mean the virus is becoming more deadly?
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"A crash program to test for COVID-19 at Florida nursing homes and ALFs has given state officials a clearer picture of the devastation wrought by the virus at long-term care facilities — including more than 1,500 deaths and thousands more infections.
In the course of two months, the state went from having tested at just a handful of elder-care homes to 2,215. Another 1,000 homes reported conducting their own tests of staff or residents or both, according to a Herald analysis of records supplied by the state. Advocates applauded the effort.
The rapidly organized program, announced to the industry in a May 21 conference call, set June 12 — last Friday — as a deadline to get the project completed."
"By May 18, when Florida began to reopen, more than 1,300 long-term care facilities still hadn’t reported any testing. By June 1, that number had shrunk to fewer than 550 facilities.
To increase testing, the Florida Department of Health began shipping COVID-19 testing kits to elder-care homes that responded to a state survey that they had the capability to conduct tests on their own. For those that couldn’t do the testing, DOH coordinated with local health departments and the National Guard to administer tests, as well as sending its mobile testing lab.
“In the past few weeks they really ramped up the effort to do the testing,’’ said Nick Van Der Linden, a spokesman for LeadingAge Florida, an association about 250 mostly nonprofit long-term care facilities.
“For the most part I’m not aware of any member that hasn’t either been testing either by receiving a testing kit or through DOH, or the American Health Associates, a new lab they have partnered with.”
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#2 - Not only did testing increase, testing among senior citizens increased as well.
Through prior testing, people in the 60+ age group were shown to have higher positive test rates compared to other groups.
If 50% of the tests administered the last two weeks were given to people aged 60+ compared to 25% the previous 2-4 week period, should you really be surprised to learn the positive test rate has increased?
More daily tests + more daily tests of at-risk patients = increased number of daily new cases + increased positive test rate.
Don't believe me? What about if Governor Rob DeSantis said the same during his press conference to release these numbers?
"At a press conference just before the record number was reported, Mr DeSantis told reporters that
numbers were going up because of an expansion in testing, including to asymptomatic people and those less at risk, and that there was no sign that major events that saw people gathering together had led to a spike in infections."
SOURCE:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/florida-coronavirus-reopening-cases-surge-testing-a9565996.htmlThis article with the above quote is even linked to within the second last paragraph of the original article from the Independent posted above.
"Governor deSantis denounced new coronavirus concerns on Sunday, as Donald Trump plans on staging this summer’s Republican convention in the state.
“I think it’s important for people to understand who is being tested now compared to who was being tested in March"
The link to the above article and quote can be reached by clicking on the "denounced new coronavirus... " text in the second last paragraph of the original article.
I guess the author of the article I quoted above just forgot to add that information.... must not be an important detail
15 minutes to find the information. 15 minutes to write this post. I don't spend my time doing this to deceive people, there's enough of that coming from those we've been told all our lives we can trust.
. No variance. Just a flat line.
