this is going to be the key issue to focus on: the new spike in EU cases is not leading to a spike in deaths.

there seem to be several possible explanations:

demographics, more testing, and data artifacts.

i suspect all are playing a role. https://twitter.com/PishPishCat/status/1293554761590071298

demographics:

the first round hit the vulnerable older cohorts. nursing homes got heavily exposed instead of protected in many places.

this is the young getting covid-19, and for them, this is not even a flu like danger.

so you would not expect deaths.

you WANT this.

testing:

let's look at these 4 countries on level of testing.

they have seen 50-100% increase in testing since early/mid july.

so that would certainly have an effect on case counts, but would not explain the whole rise.

but there is a weird data confound that might also be playing a role:

PCR tests are extremely sensitive.

they also look to have large real world false positive rates (some have looked to be as high as 30%).

this is a train-wreck. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200717005397/en/CDC-Coronavirus-Test-Kits-Generate-30-False

imagine you test 100 people. 10 really have cov.

but of the 90 who do not, 30% will test +. 27 people.

of the 10 who do, 20% will test negative. 2 people.

so overall, you get 35 positives, only 8 of which were real.

see the problem?

but it gets worse.

PCR tests are really, really sensitive and this leads to new issues.

they are testing for sections of viral DNA. they cannot tell if that DNA is "live" virus or not.

and it looks like it will respond to cov19 for up to 12 weeks.

this does not mean you are sick or contagious

it may mean that you recovered weeks or months ago.

this measure is so sensitive that it can detect viral fragments released by your own cell necrosis and cause you to flip +/-/+/-.

this is a mess.

and it has a bias toward positive PCR as more people have recovered.

and so it makes PCR actually function like an IgG.

when you pile this all together, it makes cases a really poor metric from which to make strong claims.

and thus, people doing so should be met with skepticism.

they're either lying or do not understand the data.

not all cases are bad. you WANT mild cases in young & strong for herd immunity.

not all "reported cases" are a rise in prevalence. it might be a rise in testing.

not all "positives" are real and this has heavy bias to overstate "cases"

PCR tests detect non viable virus too.

so let's all keep our heads here and stay informed and reasoned.

stand your ground on #RationalGround