Saturday, June 20, 2020

More Testing, More Cases (?)

Pertaining to yesterday's post on the rise in cases, especially David's comment, here's the data I have on testing, which I record intermittently [viz. when I get around to it] from the John Hopkins site. (It's in their right-hand box, one arrow click over.) I don't know where to find historical data -- does anyone?)


I'm not exactly sure what to do with this. Surely the increase in cases is in some part due to an increase in testing -- test/case have doubled a doubling since late April -- but I don't know how to account for that in the number of cases, or the number of cases per day, to get a cleaner trend. If you do, please point it out in the comments. US deaths aren't rising, and the rate is trending down, so that says something meaningful. Can the spikes in Arizona and Texas and Florida be explained simply by more testing? I'm dubious but can be convinced by data and analysis, whether here or elsewhere. Maybe this.


2 comments:

OnymousGuy said...

I posted a comment linking to the same article at your earlier post.

It is not true that “Cases are rising because tests are rising.”, as DinC wrote.

Don’t take my word for it. Tamino (More Infectious than COVID-19)has discussed this very subject.

Take a look at his Florida analysis. Quite compelling.

Layzej said...

Historical data is available here: https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-testing

Every country. Every day.