Thought of the Day - September 3 - Are We Getting A "Case-demic"?

In Germany, Italy and the UK case rates have been rising rapidly over the past month. In France and Spain, they have returned to their spring peak levels.

That said, associated deaths have been almost non-existent (no disrespect to those few who continue to die or are now long-hauling).

At first, I thought it was a lag effect, but case increases started a month ago. Moreover, this effect is being seen across many counties that had significant initial outbreaks, followed by some period of lock-down.

So what is going on to cause a change in the lethality of more than 100 fold?

1. Poor Initial Testing: Could it be that testing was so useless at the outset (limited testing with many false negatives) and that infection rates were several orders of magnitude larger than thought;

2. Inaccurate Reporting: Could it be that grossly inaccurate case and deaths reporting is the cause;

3. We Already Have a Cure: Could it be that there are break-through treatments being applied that have not been publicly disclosed;

4. Current Testing: Could it be that our more recent fast-turnaround testing is useless (a significant number of false positives).

All of these factors above are contributing to a degree:

1. Poor Initial Testing: We did underestimate the number of cases by an order of magnitude early on, thus this virus is far more infections and far less deadly than we thought;

2. Inaccurate Reporting: While data reporting has shown incompetence and inconsistencies over the months, this is unlikely as it would mean there is the same issue in reporting across many countries;

3. We Already Have a Cure: The results of a number of effective testaments are indeed being suppressed - this is done to ensure continued funding for therapeutics and vaccines, however, hospitalization rates are also much much lower so this is only a minor contributor;

4. Current Testing: We are over-testing using inaccurate PCR tests. Thus we are generating what we call a "Case-demic". People test positive, all their friends, colleagues and family get tested, as few get misdiagnosed as positive and the cycle continues with exponential growth. This happened before with the Swine-flu. Indeed this is getting so bad that the US CDC is now recommending that asymptomatic people who have been exposed to COVID-19 should not get tested at all!

Well folks as well as the good news that COVID-19 is far less deadly than initially suspected, but it looks like we may have ourselves a good-old "Case-demic".

Cheers

Cliff