COVID - What's Under the Hood?We are all being inundated with statistics and media hype about COVID, but what are the takeaways and reliability of the numbers and the implications?
Reliability of the numbers
From the US CDC....
Rapid tests -
if you are symptomatic and get a positive result 99% of the time you got COVID
If you get a negative result and are symptomatic the test is wrong 64% of the time.
If you get a negative result and are a symptomstic the test is wrong 34% of the time.
Takeaway?
Rapid tests reliably tell you what you already know - you are sick!! Otherwise they are basically useless.
Case Counts
They underestimate the actual number since many people are asymptomatic or simply don't report to their local health unit that the are sick.
Takeaway?
Case counts are useless
How bad is Omnicron?
I live in a large metropolitan area. We have had record (reported) case counts (about 10X from before) for the last couple of weeks. Hospitalizations? Lower than before with Delta. In the US over the past week case counts are up 75% and the number of people in hospital is up 7%. If the true number of cases was actually known then this ratio would be a lot less.
Economic Implications?
With rapid increase in numbers of cases reported and unreported combined with the quantine guidelines we are rapidly moving to a situation where there will be nobody left who can work. We have already seen this in the US over the thousands of flight cancellations.
If this continues there will some not so pleasant economic numbers coming out which will affect stock prices.
What should we do?
Clearly "following the science" so far hasn't worked. Perhaps it is time to have a rethink about this and get some people in with some fresh ideas and more importantly, some Common Sense.