So I was looking through some Indana state data, just because I was curious about coronavirus stuff... and Danm had been talking about the situations he was seeing.

So, anyway, Indiana has a pretty nice website showing all their current COVID-19 statistics. easy to navigate, get daily info on infections, testing etc. Pretty cool.

Anyway, something struck me as pretty significant (and I think Danm mentioned this in another thread days ago)....
Indiana is seeing about 500 new cases a day right now. That doesn't seem terrible...
But they're testing from about 3000 (on the 14th) to 600 (on the 12th) people.
Does anyone else see the problem here?
Statewide there are about 10,000 cases. In a state of 6.7MM people. If we were assuming random distribution (which I acknowledge we are not) we should see a positive test rate of 0.15%.... instead we're seeing about 20%.

Now, we know most people won't get tested unless they think there's a reason, so that would skew the numbers a bit. But we also know that 20-50% of the infected will not show symptoms. If 20% of the people you're testing are coming back positive, you're really barely testing your population.

victor809 wrote:

So I was looking through some Indana state data, just because I was curious about coronavirus stuff... and Danm had been talking about the situations he was seeing.

So, anyway, Indiana has a pretty nice website showing all their current COVID-19 statistics. easy to navigate, get daily info on infections, testing etc. Pretty cool.

Anyway, something struck me as pretty significant (and I think Danm mentioned this in another thread days ago)....
Indiana is seeing about 500 new cases a day right now. That doesn't seem terrible...
But they're testing from about 3000 (on the 14th) to 600 (on the 12th) people.
Does anyone else see the problem here?
Statewide there are about 10,000 cases. In a state of 6.7MM people. If we were assuming random distribution (which I acknowledge we are not) we should see a positive test rate of 0.15%.... instead we're seeing about 20%.

Now, we know most people won't get tested unless they think there's a reason, so that would skew the numbers a bit. But we also know that 20-50% of the infected will not show symptoms. If 20% of the people you're testing are coming back positive, you're really barely testing your population.

victor809 wrote:

I would think it skews the numbers more than "a bit".

tailgater wrote:

I'm not sure but I think the false positives is a problem with the antibody test (the one they're using to try to see how many people may have been infected, there's some specificity issues based on what I read). I don't think that's necessarily the diagnostic test, because it's trying to confirm multiple structures of the virus simultaneously.

There are many anecdotal examples of a false negative, but I don't think anyone knows the rate of that.

victor809 wrote:

The biggest issue with testing for the virus is false negative.
Same when testing for the flu.

It's mostly due to how the sample is obtained, and it's worse for covid because of a lot of factors.
I make things out of plastic. Well, my company does.
And we make plastic stems for brushes and swab companies.
The covid test uses a special molded stem with a thin neck for the nasopharyngeal testing. I know I probably spelled that wrong. But it goes to the back of your nose and through your brain. Makes your eyes water. But the nurse has to keep it there for like 10 seconds. Only they don't. Not in the lab. Not in a make shift tent. And certainly not while you're in your car. So the RNA isn't collected in sufficient quantity. That's the stuff needed to find the virus.
Only now it's a False negative.
And it's worse now because nobody can get the special swab stem. half the worlds supply is from Italy. Obvious issues. So they end up using straight stems. And it makes the procedure even worse. And less reliable.

If anyone knows a company that makes a flocked swab and needs a newly developed stem with a narrow flexible neck to mimic the Copan swab stem, let me know.
Seriously.

tailgater wrote: