I’m not a dr, or a scientist, or an expert of any kind, which is probably why I don’t understand Arkansas’ test results, but... I don’t understand our results. And kind of the way we look at results in general

Maybe mute this thread if this stuff makes your eyes bleed. I get it.

It seems like... everything is low. Our testing is low. But our positive rate also seems low. And our hospitalizations, also low. Which, God knows we need some good news, but all that doesn’t seem like it goes together.

If testing is low, it would reason that positive rate would be fairly high

We would be testing only (or mostly) those cases with a reason to believe there would be a positive

Anecdotally, it certainly seems that we’ve heard stories about only highly symptomatic ppl being tested

A flatter curve of confirmed cases is only really, truly helpful if it also gives us an idea of how many actual cases are out there. Whether it is 2x, 5x, 10x, whatever.

With testing so low, and so scattershot (it seems!), I don’t know how we get a good picture of that.

Another way to think about testing. With the diagnostic tests we have, it’s only a snapshot in time.

It’s a novel virus. None of us have immunity. The denominator for possible infections is THE WHOLE POPULATION.

A negative test doesn’t raise the numerator, which is good for the individual.

But it also doesn’t lower the denominator. It doesn’t mean that person won’t get Covid-19. It just means they don’t have it now.

They could get it tomorrow.

A negative test is kind of a waste.

So if our testing is low, and we are selectively testing, and we STILL only have a positive rate ~10% (I think?), either that’s really good news and evidence that things are going well.

Or maybe our data has us lost in the woods. Because our testing is all over the place.

Regardless, if we maintain a low caseload, and low testing numbers, and low positive %, we are going to have lots and lots of people ready to get back to work soon, wondering if they have already recovered from a mild or asymptomatic Covid case that was never tested for.

We are going to need a lot of the antibody tests as they come out. The test where a positive result is a good thing.

This is what will get people back to work.

We don’t need low numbers for this test. We need to be testing freely.

We’ll need a plan in place to get these tests because every state will be after them, just like the current test. Hopefully our state government is already on it. I think they are doing their dead level best. I know it’s an impossible job right now.