I've made comments previously about how 'respectful' this virus is of our holidays both before the weekend and now after -
- for those of you who haven't been following me for the long term, I think I should re-clarify what I mean by its 'respect' & why it is so important in understanding the actual danger of this virus in terms of true illness and not just people testing positive with no ill effect.
Obviously, the virus isn't actually 'respectful' - it's a virus. Holidays and weekends are meaningless when it comes to illness. You get sick when you get sick whether it's a holiday or not.
But because of the way that Ohio counts a 'case' as being anyone who tests positive with any test, with or without symptoms, with or without exposure.
Whether or not the test is appropriate to use in that asymptomatic person or not distorts how we see the actual danger of the virus in the community.
Because ODH does not report how many 'cases' have symptoms, it's hard to know what proportion of our 'cases' are actually causing true illness, and how many are people simply testing positive, including those with false positives because no test is perfect.
But it is not impossible to figure out if you know where to look - and where to look is at our holidays.
If a person falls ill and starts experiencing symptoms, their 'case' is assigned on the date the individual starts experiencing symptoms, not when they test positive.
If a person falls ill and starts experiencing symptoms, their 'case' is assigned on the date the individual starts experiencing symptoms, not when they test positive.
While if a person tests positive with no symptoms, their 'case' is assigned to the date of the test.
So what does this have to do with holidays? People aren't being screened on holidays. There are very few tests being run on people without symptoms on those days.
So what does this have to do with holidays? People aren't being screened on holidays. There are very few tests being run on people without symptoms on those days.
Now, if people were becoming genuinely ill, the holiday wouldn't matter - if they developed symptoms on the 4th of July, that's when their illness started, that's when their case is assigned.
⭐️ Put another way - if our 'cases' represent true illness, we should not be able to identify weekends & holidays in the assigned data.
But we can easily identify holidays in our data, & the scale of the drop gives us an idea of where our actual baseline of illness actually lies.
But we can easily identify holidays in our data, & the scale of the drop gives us an idea of where our actual baseline of illness actually lies.
Because truly, illness is what we care about. We are covered in viruses and bacteria at all times and so long as they don't make us ill, does it matter?
Please examine the two attached graphs - the first is from the last month for both probable & confirmed cases. We can see how 'probable' cases have flatlined, already an indication that we may be seeing just asymptomatic false positives from a certain volume of routine testing. 
The confirmed cases were steadily dropping over the same time frame. But the important part is at the very end - the very sharp drop in cases over the weekend, particularly the 'probable' cases on the 4th itself.
⭐️ If these 'cases' represented actual illness, we should not be seeing such a drop.
The second attached graph is from last winter when I saw the exact same phenomenon occurring. One can clearly identify weekends in the data, and the incredibly sharp drop on just Thanksgiving itself is not natural. That's not how respiratory diseases work.
By watching our holidays, we can get a better handle on exactly how many 'cases' lead to actual disease, and from this weekend's data, we can see that the few 'cases' that the state is still counting are not individuals who are actually ill.
#InThisTogetherOhio
#InThisTogetherOhio
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
