Let’s talk about #COVID19 plateaus. Lebanon’s test positivity, # tests conducted, & # new cases have largely stabilized. It could mean cases & spread are plateauing, but it can also mean #Lebanon has hit a ceiling in its testing capacity. Meaning if testing ↑, cases would ↑. 1/

Let’s take a look @ these 3 measures in different ways. This graph presents daily domestic tests & cases on 2 axes. You can see tests are ahead of cases until beginning of Oct, then lines seem to move in unison. 2/

This graph looks @ % △ for domestic tests & cases. The lines seem sporadic until 2nd week of Oct, from which they appear more closely correlated. This suggests if #Lebanon were testing more, we’d see an ↑ in cases. W/ high +, this means large # of unknown & uncounted. 3/

This graph presents % △ in columns instead. △s in tests don’t exactly mirror △s in cases, but you can observe a similar movement between the 2 measures. % + also continues to move ↑, suggesting ↑ spread & insufficient testing to understand true case count. 4/

To build story of what's going on w/ #COVID19 in #Lebanon, one must look @ several measures, not one in isolation. From these data & graphs, it’s hard to draw definitive conclusions about what's going on. That in & of itself is concerning given we’re 36 weeks into a response. 5/

High test + means #COVID19 is continuing to spread @ rate well above <5% WHO recommendation for reopening. Testing is key to bringing any outbreak under control & should be appropriately scaled to size of epidemic. We need to flatten curve of #COVID19, not the testing for it. 6/